Kite Lines

Transcription

Kite Lines

QUARTERLYJOURNAL OF THE WORLDWIDE
d
COMMUNITY
w
WINTER-SPRING 1995, VOL. 11NO. 2
F
SPARS!
m Yom
Reproduction in any form, in whole or i
part, is strictly prohibited without prior
written permission of the publisher
Kite Lines is the comprehensive internatlona1 journal of kiting, uniquely serving to
unify the broadest range of kiting interests.
It is published by Aeolus.Press, Inc. with
editorial offices at 8807 Liberty Road,
Randallstown, Maryland 21133, USA, telephone 410-922-1212, fax 410-922-4262.
Kite Lines is endorsed by the International
Kitefliers Association and is on file in libraries
of the National Air and Space Museum,
Smithsonian; National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Sciences Administration;
University of Notre Dame Sports and Games
Research Collection; the Library of Congress,
and the Deutsches Museum Library, Munich,
Germany. It is included in the Index to Craft
Journals from the Crafts Council of Australia.
Publisher: Aeolus Press, Inc
Editor: Valerie Govig
Associute Editor: Leonard M. Conove
Production Editor: Sharon Fisher
Technical Editor: Michael Graves
Contributing Editors: Steve McKerro\
Dan Eisaman
Promotion Director: Me1 Govig
Interrlational Correspondents: Pierre Fabre
Simon Freidin
Business Consultant: R. T. McCoy
Editorial Advisory Panel:
William R. Bigge
Arthur Kurle
Bevan H. Brown
Curtis Marsh
Robert S. Price
Edwin L. Grauel
William A. Rutiser
Gary Winze
Ray Holland, Jr.
Kevin Shannon
Charles A. Sotich
A. Pete Ianuzzi
Richard F. Kinnaird Tal Streeter
G. William Tyrrell, Jr.
Nat Kobitz
Founder of the American Kitefliers
Association: Robert M. Ingraham.
Si~bscriptions:In the U.S.A. and possessions,
$16.00 for one year (four issues), $29.00 for
two years (eight issues); all other countries,
$22.00 for four issues, $39.00 for eight issue:
(includes air-lift service). Foreign payments
must be in U.S. dollars through a U.S. bank
or the U.S. Post Office. Single copies are
available from the finest kite stores worldwide, or for $4.50 plus $1.00 shipping (surface) from the journal offices.
Mailings: Occasionally Kite Lines makes its
list of subscribers available to organizations
offering information, products or services of
interest to kiters. Subscribers may be excluded from such lists by contacting Kite Lines.
Change of address: Send notification, including both old and new address.
Write to Kite Lines at P.O. Box 466,
Randallstown, MD 21133-0466, USA.
Advertising rates and information sheet is
available upon request.
Contributions of information, articles and
photographs are always invited. Submitted
material must be accompanied by a selfaddressed envelope with adequate postage.
Kite Lines is not responsible for unsolicited
material. Writers and photographers should
request guidelines before submitting. Accuracy of contents is the responsibility of
individual contributors. Diverse views presented in Kite Lines are not necessarily those
of the editor, staff or advisory panelists.
Postmaster: Send address changes to Kite
Lines, P.O. Box 466, Randallstown, MD
21133-0466. Application to mail at second
class postage rates is pending at Randall.town, MD and additional entry points.
4 / KITE LINES I WINTER-SPRING 1995
M.a&@,Gemny
'4In Vento
Klein Feldhus 1
0-26180 Rastede-Neusiidende
Tel. +49 4402 - 92 62-0
Fax +49 4402 - 92 62-29
Distribution of Be-products in the US:
What's uu. Ohio and D.J. Sportkites, l%
I"
.
Contents
A Lift Into History / 20
Lawrence Hargrave's sky-breaking feat is commemorated in a centenary fly at Stanwell Park
beach, Australia. By Simon Freidin.
The Nordic Experience/ 25
The Drakfesten in Stockholm has an atmosphere all its own. By Istvan Bod6czky.
Buggies on a Spin! / 34
News and photographs of the latest buggy models from France. By Pierre Fabre.
Plus: PKA news and events, and buggy updates from all over.
Dieppe: Where One's Passion for Kites Can Truly be Put on Display / 36
Celebrating friends, artistry and an incredible enthusiasm for kites in this major
international biennial festival. By Simon Freidin.
The Kitemaker of Hiroshima/ 41
From treasure tales by Tal Streeter.
"He'sJust Got the Touch" / 45
A portrait of the amazing talent Alex Mason, only seven years old. By Steve McKerrow.
Spars-Making Your Best Pick/ 48
The comprehensive study helps you choose the best spar for your kite. By Michael Graves.
Letter from the Publisher / 8
Letters / 10
Design Workshop / 12
The Baby Cicada by Randy Shannon.
What's New: Kites / 15
The Speed Limit from Aerodrone; the Tandem Mosquito from Cerfs-Volants Azur; the Pro
Speed 6+ from Flexifoil; the Tie-Dyed Ro!&aku from High as a Kite; the Bat Fighter from
Frank Schwiemann; the Genkl from Carlisle Kiteworks; and the Eddy from Bobby Stanfield.
What's New: Books / 23
Two books on Lawrence Hargrave by David A. Craddock: Ravensboume to Airborne and
ConstructionDrawings; plus Pedalling Unknown Paths by Michele Veltuizen-deVries.
Kitechnology / 29
Who needs a sewing machine? Kitemaklng with adhesives. By Dick Curran.
It Works For Me / 43
Profile / 53
..
Roger Maddy does the unprecendented: flies three quad-line kites at once. By Brian Clark.
For the Record / 61
Empty Spaces in the Sky / 63
Low Chin Nghee of Singapore remembered by Shakib Gunn.
In the Wind / 65
SkyGallery / 66
Scott Skinner unites America and Japan in Monument, Colorado.
Kite Lines Bookstore, Back Issues and Other Goodies / 5 7
Classifieds / 68
Directory of Outlets /. 69
Pocket Kite Calendar / Insert
Aime Barsalou of St. Boniface, Manitoba, Canada carries his inventive three-dimensional creations to the
field at the Dieppe International Kite Festival, France (see story on page 36). Longtime enthusiast Barsalou typifies the commitment and good humor of this grand event. Photograph by Simon Freidin.
A
/ KITE LINES / WINTER-SPRING 1995
Rite Construction System
Dealers are invited to contact us;
Weteringkade 5a, 2515 AK, The Hague, The Netherlands
tel:(Oll)31-70-385 8586 fax:(011) 31-70-383 8541
LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER
Write a Letter for Kites!
T
here are some fine historic kites in the collection of the
National Air & Space Museum, Srnithsonian, in Washington,
DC-but have you seen them?
Hardly anyone has! Some were on display there for one year,
in 1978. Blink-they were gone. The first form of aircraft is
nowhere to be seen in the huge museum on the Mall, the most
popular museum in the world.
The collection itself was built by Paul E. Garber, deceased
Historian Emeritus and champion of kites at the Smithsonian.
Since his death, the kites continue to be held in storage, under
reasonable care. Original Alexander Graham Bell tetrahedral cells
are under humidity control. An original Eddy stands in an acrylic
case. However, no real efforts seem to be under way to acquire
additional important kites for the collection. Nor, apparently, is
much interest being shown in displaying the kites.
Although at some time in 1996 an educational exhibit titled
"How Things Fly" will be mounted in the Museum, the latest
news we have indicates that the percentage of kites to be
displayed will be small. Balloons, gliders and other forms of aircraft will dominate.
We understand that the Smithsonian reacts to public
demand. Let's make our wishes known! Kite Lines does not have
to tell you, a devoted kite enthusiast, about the illustrious history
of kites in the development of aviation. You know this. You
know that the clock is ticking on the availabilityof fine and rare
kites. And you know the loss to kiting as millions of visitors
come to the National Air & Space Museum annually and fail to
be exposed to a single kite.
Do some-!
Write a letter! Even one letter is powerful.
Even a few letters are tremendously powerful. We at Kite Lines
can't spare the time to circulate a petition. We have to ask you to
care enough to write an individual letter, your own letter, in
your own words. This is a chore to be sure. You are busy, yes. But
in this case your personal effort could really, really matter. Write
today and ask the Smithsonian to keep collecting important kites
and to show more of them to its visitors. Address to :
Martin Harwit, Director
National Air & Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560
F a : 202-357-2426
N FAN@FOR ONE OF EUROPE" PREM
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a a a
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& a a a
,
,
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h island of Fan@
ion and ferry tickets.
*Prices subject to change. Maximum group size of ten people. Reservationsaccepted on first-come, first-serve basis.
-8 / KITE LINES / WINTER-SPRING 1995
*
custom k~fes,
folls a specfa/&
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1609 S.W. 12th Court
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 3331 2
TeliFax. (305) 523-3054
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Please send $5 for color catalogue,
cost to be appl~edto first kite.
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WINTER-SPRING 1995 / KITE LINES / 9
Our
Retail Family
Poring over..
Scrapbook
Store: Kites of Boston
7 North Market, 2nd Floor
Faneuil Hall Marketplace
Boston, MA 02109
Tel: 617-742-1455
Fax: 508-226-0463
Floor space: 370 square feet
Hours: M-S 10-9
Sun. 12-6
Years in business: 8
Years profitable: 5
Years carried Kite Lines: 8
Owner: Don McCasland
Age: 35
Favorite food: Cmstaceans
Last book read: What to
10 / KITE LINES 1 WINTER-SPRING 19?=
Eisenberg,
- Murkoff and
Hoffman
Last kite book read: Stunt
Kite Basics by Richard
Favorite flying spot:
Gallups Island in Boston
Harbor
Latest promotional
effort: Widespread press
releases about the kiteflying done for the movie
Blown Away and the kite
signed by the stars of the
movie.
Spedalty of the store:
The largest selection in
.
Sleeping Beauty
I was surprised to see you.list my husband,
David Gomberg, as a high-ranked contender
in your "Snoring Olympics" (Kite Lines, Fall
1994).This is important because David travels a lot and quiet sleepers don't like to
share rooms with people who are rumored
to be a bit noisy. Your "heavy honkers and
shrill tweeters" quickly tend to get lumped
together. David does a lot of things in his
sleep, but snoring isn't one of them.
-Susan Gomberg
Neotsu, Oregon, USA
always changing.
Most important advice
ever received: If you're
not having fun you probably shouldn't be doing it.
Nicest sale ever made: The
movie Pacific Heights
bought kites here and I
worked with Alice Mackey
to provide props from
David Checkley's Kite
Fadory for the movie.
Best -ge
benefit of the
store: Meeting great people from all over the world.
Kite
Lines: Summer-Fall 1983,
the first issue I got, which
I still have.
I f Kite Lines intends to surreptitiouslyattempt
to refurbish the dubious reputation of David
Gomberg, perhaps it should do so in a fashion which does not so seriously strain the
credulity of its readers! Snoring champion?
HA! Even I can out-vibrate his walls any
night.
There is a story that a shrieking madman, cleverly disguised as Wolfgang
Schimmelpfennig, once bolted in the dead
of night from an English boudoir we shared,
never to return. Being deep in "snore-nambulance," I cannot personally verify such a
wild tale, but let's just see Gomberg top that
one!
He may attend all those fancy festivals
that Kite Lines covers, but that should not
mean that you publicize his more trivial
skills. Let's give credit where credit is due.
-Jon E. Burkhardt
Potomac, Maryland, USA
Is Bamboo Better?
I have some data regarding the common
assertion that bamboo has properties superior to other materials for its weight.
Material
Density
Bamboo
20 lblff
Steel Wire
490 lb/ft3
Silk
101 lb/ft'
31 lblff
Spruce
Tensile Strength
Column
Sustained
40,00060,000 lb/inz
432,000 ft
246,000-313,000 1biid
92,000 ft
35,00062,000 Ib/in2
5,COCL10,000Ib/inz
88,000 ft
46,000ft
Although steel is 5.22 times as strong as
bamboo, it is also 24.5 times as heavy.
Compare strength to weight by calculating
the length of a column that doesn't break
under its own weight. Bamboo has 4.70
times the strength for weight of steel, in
tension. I found no data on the compressive,
shear or bending strength of bamboo. In
most kite construction, bamboo resists bend-
LETTERS
-
Snorers and Rotors and Dam Doors
ing and compressive forces.
The major advantage of bamboo in the
Far East is its ready availability. Its disadvantage in Europe and North America is its
rarity. It doesn't come in a variety of standard structural shapes. It must be worked by
hand, it splits apart when bent and it
becomes brittle with age. Bamboo is used in
kites where it is readily available and where
labor is cheap.
The paper is most of the weight of most
oriental kites. I wonder whether bamboo
paper would be stronger for its weight than
papers made from bark or wood.
--Gary Hinze
San Jose, California, USA
Speechless in Virginia
Our family of three generations puts on
kitemaking workshops for children at various events sponsored by Chesterfield
County, Virginia. Our kites are always free.
Each event leaves us with memorable experiences. Two really stand out, which I'd like
to share.
A beautiful Latin Mom, dressed in a peasant skirt, took off her shoes, took her son's
sled kite and danced a beautiful ballet with
the kite. Boy, did she know how to fly the
kite, pumping it up in the light wind!
It was a dance of soul and kitreal kite
ballet-and just left us speechless.
Even more unforgettable was another
encounter. Crowds at the event were light,
Unidentified Flying Rotors so we had three or four minutes to show
I read your review of rotors (Fall 1994 Kite each child how to tell the direction of the
Lines). I made a rotor seven years ago from wind and launch kites. As I was returning
half-inch metallic-coated foam insulation from launching a kite, a single parent and
child stopped to visit. The mother said she
and trimmed the edges with foil tape.
It looks like a solid block of flying alu- had just moved to Richmond and had only
minum. It's still flashing in the sky, like a real been here four weeks. Her son asked, "How
UFO, and takes enormous abuse. I doubt if much are the kites? My mom doesn't have
it will ever see a landfill. Conversely, its any money."
I replied, "These kites are always free.
recycling is environmentally responsible.
This
is what we are all about." His mom
Encourage your readers to save more
grabbed
my arm and said, "God bless you!"
scrap pieces like this. Parts can be obtained
easily from new construction, and fabrica- When I returned to the assembly table where
my spouse was, he said in a choked up
tion is easy and straightforward.
-Jim Skryia voice, "I see you have a new friend."
We thank Chesterfield Parks and
owings Mills, Maryland, USA
Reaeation for helping us to put free kites in
I read with great interest Me1 Govig's review needy hands.
With the help of Girl Scouts we hope to
of the expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam)
rotor kite. I have a question: If kites that expand our kite outreach to retirement and
rotate about a more or less horizontal axis nursing homes in the coming year. We'll
may be called "rotors," what do we call kites make airless "baby" kites on silk strings,
that that have lifting surfaces that rotare attach them to pencils and fly to music.
After all, you're never too old to fly a kite!
about a vertical axis, like gyrocopters?
-Linda Tensen
Shouldn't kites with vertical rotation
Chesterfield, Virginia, USA
axes be called "rotors" (as in a Rotary rating
for helicopter pilots) and horizontals be
called "turbos" as in turbines? Do we need Knot Again
different terms for kites with different axes? It finally happened to me. I had tied the
-Gary Engvall brand new 130-poundtest line with a knot
Cranston, Rhode Island, USA I've used for 15years to my big delta with a
100-foot tube tail. After a while, the kite
Me1 replies: Blame it on Jesse Donaldson and climbed almost straight over me and was
Guy Aydlette. The accepted term for a ver- pulling like a horse. In a heartbeat I felt that
tically spinning kite has been "auto-gyro." sickening snap. The line wrinkled up in
What we call "rotor" should probably be slow motion and free-fell towards me, piling
called "Magnus effect," but who would say up on the ground at my feet. I rolled up my
Continued on page 14.. .
that? "Turbo" is a good term. Thanks!
T
he source
for the latest
and greatest
products, support
and service for
whichever way
the wind blows.
4500 CHAGRIN RIVER ROAD
CHAGRIN FALLS, OHIO 44022
2161247-4222
WHOLESALE TO TRADE
WINTER-SPRING 1995 / KITE LINES 1 11
DESIGN WORKSHOP
Randy Shannon's Baby Cicada
.
T
he excellent fighter
flier Randall S. (Randy) Shannon of Zealous Kites and Banners, Flagstaff,
Arizona gave
me this Baby
Cicada last year. He
willingly exchanged
it for two Korean kites.
I immediately fell in love
with Randy's Cicada. Since
then it has flown on three coni,nents, in the hands of a dozen or
more fliers. They all loved it, almost as
much as I did. In flight, the Cicada is an
active fighter, but not to the point of frenzy. It tracks well and takes right-angleturns.
The unusual sequence of Randy's construction took us a bit of time to figure out,
but now that we've done it we appreciate the
care and thought that went into designing
what appears to be a very simple kite. It is
deceptively simple. We think you'll enjoy
Randy's Baby Cicada.
-M.G.
By Me1 Govig & Michael J. Graves
.
C
~
~
g
&
~
1. Following the diagram
"
and the grain direction indicated (sothat each panel is
created as a mirror
image to its counterpart) cut out two of each
wing and center panels.
Leave seam allowances as follows: X" for seams and %" for
hems. One way to ensure symmetry
is to fold the fabric and cut two panels
at once.
2. Cut the lmm fiberglass into two 14%"
pieces and one 12"piece. To reduce wear on
the fabric pockets, sand fiberglass ends
smooth, dip in Plasti-Dip, epoxy or nail polish and let dry.
3. From grosgrain ribbon, cut the pockets for the spars and the sleeve that will
hold down the upper bow.
4. Cut two pieces of adhesive ripstop
tape %" x 3" to reinforce sleeves for spreader.
5. Attach the tape strips to the wing
hems at the outer tips before burning holes
and hemming for the spreader.
.
The instructions given here are for a plain,
four-panel version of Randy's Cicada. The Sewing
midsection of the version shown has 1%" Following Randy's sewing order:
stripes appliqued and cut away. For sim1. Press and sew doubled hems in this
plicity, we've left out the stripes.
order: a. bottom center panels; b. bottom
wing panels; c. upper wing panels. After
Materials
pressing hem, burn a %"-diameterhole
a K yard or more 0.75-oz. ripstop nylon
through one folded hem thickness only (not
a 3" x 2"adhesive-backed ripstop tape
through the face of the kite).
a 4" x XI' grosgrain ribbon
2. Sew each wing panel to the correa 3"x Y" grosgrain ribbon
sponding center panel.
a 23" fiberglass rod 2mm (0.063")diameter
3. Sew the two completed sides togetha 41" fiberglass rod lmm (0.049")diameter
er at the center.
a 16" of finished spruce, K" x $Il for spine
4. Sew down the center seam and the
a a small amount of Plasti-Dip, epoxy or
seams between the center and wing panels.
nail polish
Inside seams fold to the outside, to maintain
a 1%"
x %"-diameterheat-shrink tubing or symmetry. The center seam must be folded
wraps of adhesive tape
and double-stitched to one side, but this
a 1"x 1%"
of thin vinyl for pocket lining
doesn't seem to cause imbalance.
4 2 of 20-lb-testbridle line, Daaon poly5. Double hem the leading edge.
ester or linen
6. Sew on four pockets from folded-inThis is Randy's materials list, but you half pieces of grosgrain ribbon. For extra
may replace some items with materials more durability you can add a thin piece of vinyl
available to you, such as pine or bamboo for inside each pocket.
spruce. The things you cannot readily sub7. Insert the two 14%"fiberglass battens
stitute are the fiberglass rods. (These are up into the seams between the center and
stocked by a few suppliers, e.g. Goodwinds wing panels. Lock-stitch the bottom shut,
Kites, Seattle, Washington.)
then the top, closing the sleeves perma12 / KITE LINES / WINTER-SPRING 1995
t (Randy
i ~uses anstraight stitch with a
nently.
zipper foot on his sewing machine.)
Assembly
1. Using boiling water or a candle, heat the
spine and bend it to 10-15 degrees of forelaft
bow from what will be the nose end to 3"
down. Or do it Randy's way: bow the spine
gradually from the nose to a full 8" down.
2. Insert spine and bow spars. The spine
is a tight fit: carefully wedge it into place.
Most ripstop fighters are cut with the grain
on a bias to the spine. This certainly allows
easier insertion of the spine, but Randy's
layout provides a more stable overall sail.
3. Mark the exact center of the 23"
spreader. The upper two legs of the threepoint bridle are held in position by a 1%"long piece of shrink tubing centered on the
rod. Use a lighter or hair dryer to shrink it
into place. (Be advised that this technique is
subject to a jealously guarded U.S. patent in
comercial kitemaking.) An alternative is to
use vinyl friction tape or adhesive tape, two
apart.
wraps, outer edges 1%"
4. Reinforce the sail at the bridle points
with adhesive ripstop tape or strappingtape:
center a 1"x kS1piece of tape 3g' up from the
base of the spine; and center a 2?4lx %" piece
directly under the spreader.
Bridling
1. Burn a small hole immediately on
each side of the spine in the middle of the
lower reinforcing patch. Also burn a small
hole directly under each end of the heatshrink tubing or the tape on the spreader.
2. For the upper two legs of the bridle,
prepare a line of 7" completed length including a loop at each end. Mark the exact center with a pen or marker.
3. Prepare the main bridle line of 19"
completed length including a '%
1' loop at the
bottom end and a X" loop at the top end.
Using a doubled larks head knot, connect
the main line to the middle of the shorter
bridle line. Thread the bottom end of the
main line through the lower pair of holes,
making a larks head knot around the spine.
4. Remove the spreader rod from the
kite. Pass one end of the short line through
each of the holes near the nose of the kite.
Reinsert the spreader using larks head knots
to secure both ends of the short line around
Would you like
to play with
my Aruba?
CENTE
P4NEI
Caribbean Kite Company
1099 N.E. 45 Street
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33334 U.S.A.
Tel: 305-776-5433
Fax 305-776-5434
+
P.O. Box 39,Lucea
Hanover, Jamaica, W.I.
I
Tel: 809-956-267 Fax: 809-956-2677
+
Weidestrasse 147
22083 Hamburg, Germany
Tel: 040-22013 59 Fax: 040-22016 45
the spreader rod. The two ends should come
to rest firmly against the ends of the heatshrink tubing or tape.
5. Finally, make a towing loop from a 4"
piece of line. Tie it around the main bridle
line with a doubled larks head knot.
Adjusting the Bridle
The flight attitude of the Baby Cicada is
set by the position of its towing point. Hang
the kite over the ground or floor from its
towing point. Check to be sure the kite
hangs level left to right. Adjust as needed to
bring it into level. The kite's nose should be
about 15 degrees higher than its tail. Again
adjust as necessary. Remember to cinch the
tow loop securely in place.
This typeof three-leg bridle allows you to
precisely balance the kite. You accomplish
thisby slidingthe point where the main line
connects to the shorter yoke line. While
this is a convenient way to balance the kite,
the range of adjustment is small, perhaps less
than M" left or right.
If in flight the kite favors one side or
doesn't maintain a good angle, you can
make further adjustments easily.
~ o o flying!
d
V
RANDY SHANNON is a 32-year-old kite btcilder
who makes his living as team leader for an outdoor-based residential program for at-risk
teenagers. Randy also bikes and keeps a vegetablegarden for his wife Beth and baby son.
I
WINTER-SPRING 1995 I KITE LINES I 13
LETTERS.. .Continued porn page 11
line and noticed it
had broken at the
knot. The kite? Held
nose into wind by
its long tail, it majestically backed up.. .
and backed up.. .
and backed up. I
chased it in my car,
but was never able
to spot it again. I
I searched the
public library for a
Fisherman's Bend
better knot that
wouldn't break and settled on the
Fisherman's Bend (or Anchor Hitch). It
doesnlt reduce the line's breaking strength as
much as the knot I used all those years. It's
very secure, but tough to untie in thin line.
4 r a i g Wilson
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
See de ROM?
While shopping through the pages of the
Kite Lines Bookstore, I noticed an advertisement for back issues of Kite Lines and Kite
Tales. It said, "NOW YOU CAN HAVE IT
ALL--ON MICROFILM!" What about CDROM for those of us who have replaced our
home microfiche readers (or never owned
one)?
-Bill Flynn
Warren, Ohio, USA
Kite Lines replies: We have investigated the
possibility of offering the magazines on CDROM and found that the costs would not be
recoverable. Maybe, in time, the lowdemand-to-hlgh-costratio will change. We'll
watch for it.
Bowing Barn Doors
I enjoyed reading "In Praise of Low Tech"
("Letter from the Publisher," Fall 1994 Kite
Lines). I have made kites out of natural materials for years. But recently I became curious
and embarked on a different course.
In 1992 I decided to experiment with
my favoritekite, the American Three-Stick,
also known as the Barn Door. I always
seemed to have good luck in making this
kite-it usually flew well. I wondered how it
would behave if it wasn't flat. Also, I was concerned about its flimsy cover materialpaper.
14 / KITE LINES / WINTER-SPRING 1995
Edgar Darneron's
I found the Barn Door responded very
favorably to some changes and adjustments
I made. I built and flight-tested 12 kites over
a period of a year, beginning with butcher
paper as a cover and finally ending with
Tyvek, my present choice. The white cedar
sticks, medium gauge cotton string and Dap
glue worked fine in framing. The result was
a light, strong kite that flies damage-free
even in 20-25 mph winds. I sewed the trailing edge with nylon thread for reinforcement.
I have heard for years that kites, like airplanes, fly as a result of air pressure that
flows over the wings. I found that a sizable
bow put on the Barn Door has a positive
effect, causing it to fly higher, steadier and
more controllably. The bow can best be
achieved with a pre-cured, specially processed cedar cross stick. Also, a wide trailing
edge appears advisable because it exposes
more kite to the wind and has some lifting
value. The kite is no longer flat. It acquires
what is called dihedral.
Wayne Hosking, in his recent book Kites,
stated that three-stickers "...fly at a low
angle and require long tails for stability."Not
so with this kite! A tail is still required, but
much less is needed than the original flat
kite. In reasonable winds it becomes a fastclimbing high flier after it passes 45 degrees.
In all my tests it flew higher and steadier and
was easier to put up than the delta, Eddy,
rokkaku or other popular kites. In an official
test it flew at an average angle of 72 degrees.
At the Carolina Kite Fest held at Atlantic
Beach, North Carolina in October, 1993, it
flew far above all the other kites.
I also read with interest the review of
the book, Kiting to Record Altitudes. The
reviewer says that competition in high flying among single-line kites would be missing the point. Apparently he has not yet
enjoyed the thrill of having his kite fly overhead at superior heights. Many single-liners
enjoy high flying, the higher the better. The
proof of a kite is its ability to fly. Also, I
believe that the adage that "a kite withour
a tail will fly higher than a kite with a tail"
is disproved by my own high flier.
-Edgar Dameron
Burlington, Norfh Carolina, USA
The Seven Kite
Commandments of
Neil Thorburn
The only vehicle whose
performance is improved
by weight is a steamroller.
•If a kite costs more than five
dollars, I am afraid to fly it.
No one is allowed to fly a
kite higher than mine.
Kites are to be flown,
not preserved.
(I never heard of finding a
kite at an archaeological site.)
> I am not one of those who
consider stunt kites an obscenity.
> Stunt kites may, however,
price the sport out of existence.
> Hanging pretties on a
kite is OK, but a kite is
not a Christmas tree.
-excerpted
porn a letter by
Neil Thorburn
San Jose, California, USA
ColTt?diofls & Cldfi~atioXlS
In the Fall 1994 Kite Lines, the pointillistic
banners seen with the article on the
Thailand International Kite Festival were
incorrectly credited to the team from Italy.
The banners were created by Frank
Schwiemann of Germany.
In the Fall 1994 Kite Lines Special Guest
Department, the phone number for Bobby
Stanfield should have been 209-636-9350.
The errors are regretted.
Write us a letter! Anything you write to
Kite Lines may be considered for publication, so please mark it "not for publication"
if you want no doubt to be left about it.
Address to: Kite Lines, P.O. Box 466,
Randallstown, MD 21 133-0466, USA. Or
fax us at 410-922-4262.
W
S NMI: KITES
Speedy Stunters, One-Line Wonders
By Dave Arnold, Me1 & Valerie Govig, Michael J. Graves and Bert Tanaka
and solid. Through tip stands, tumSpeed Limit
After seeing a most impressive Speed Limit bles and rolls, it proved itself a
megateam performance at the last AKA con- husky performer. we didn't see any
vention, we were eager to try this new kite of the extreme spar bending that
ourselves. Aerodrone Sport Kites targets this ground work often induces in
kite to fliers who are blessed with strong kites.
The Speed Limit did not accelwinds but prefer framed delta stunt kites. It
erate quickly. Pumping the lines
s u c c e e d w d with innovation too.
The new feature is an adjustable venting forcefullv had less effect than -this was caused
system that allows the kite to fly at a steady usual. We fimed
"
pace throughout a wide range of wind speeds. by the kite's weight and by the venting sysHere's how the system works. Each wing tem's reacting to the pumping motions as if
has a small triangle of mesh that serves as a they were minor gusts of wind.
Well suited to either precision or ballet,
vent. Each vent is covered by a pair of ripstop
flaps on the back of the sail. These flaps the Speed Limit should be popular when the
open and close over the vents like two wind really blows. But its consistent perforspring-loadeddoors. As pressure on the sail mance in variable winds should make points
varies, these doors open and close in pro- ii? competition, or just for fun, with novices
portion, moderating forward speed and pull. and advanced fliers alike . -M.I.G./B.T.
That's just what we experienced:moderate
forward speed, and less pull than we expect- Tandem Mosquito
Since its introduction in 1992, the Tandem
ed for a kite with this much sail.
The Speed Limit features a pultruded from Cerfs-VolantsAzur has been considered
graphite frame and ripstop nylon sail. Its among the finest of team precision kites.
mechanical design is somewhat complicat- However prized, its slow, precise handling
ed, combining the active venting system and laser-straighttracking have cornmandwith six standoffs, two battens and a trailing ed a high price. We were intrigued by the
edge leech line. Its construction is very good, idea of the more affordable new six-foot
Tandem Mosquito.
showing a strong interest in durability.
This kite looks exactly like a TandemThe maker rates the Speed Limit to fly in
winds from 5 to 25 mph. At 15 ounces, the only shrunken. It features the same "airkite's weight limited its low-wind perfor- flow regulator" system and battened wings
mance. We found the kite did its best stuff as its larger brother. The airflow regulator is
in the higher end of its wind range. But we a smaller wing structure inset into the cenliked its ability to hold a steady forward ter of the kite, and is designed to slow the
speed because this made complex figures kite's forward speed.
The Mosquito's design is very complex for
and precise pacing for ballet much easier.
Tracking is the Speed Limit's strongest a kite that sells for only $80, yet only minor
suit. Flying consistently throughout the compromises have been made to keep the
window, it flew a straight line exceptional- price low. We were pleased that the kite still
ly well. Although it spins within its wing tip, features Azur's high quality construction.
The Mosquito is framed in pultruded carthe kite will exit a spin with a minimum of
wandering. And it exits a 90-degree turn bon spars except for the center winglets and
standoffs, which use fiberglass. When first
with a snap.
We put the Speed Limit through our assembled, the sail of our sample kite was
usual favorite maneuvers. It was always uncomfortably tight. This was the result of
agde, easily performing a variety of axels standoffs that were slightly too long. We sirn(flat spinning maneuvers). In 12-15 rnph ply trimmed them by to ease the tension.
winds, we were able to snap-stall in the cenAzur recommends the Tandem Mosquito
ter of the window, and hold the stall in for use in winds from 7-30 mph, and also
place. Side slides were another specialty of suggests using 75-foot lines of 80-lb Spectra.
Using their suggested lines, we found the kite
this kite.
In ground work, the Speed Limit felt nice did fly in a 6-7 rnph breeze, but it was a
struggle. Then, as the wind reached 10 mph,
the struggle changed to fun, and the kite
started to show its true character.
The Mosquito retains many of the qualities of the larger original. Its forward speed
was relatively constant, even in dives. It
tracked well for its size, centering tight turns
inside its wingtip. The kite was reliable
throughout its wind window, which was
very large.
At the same time, this is a new kite. For
example, the Mosquito is fast. It was also
much more sensitive to control than we
had expected. In some kites, such sensitivity results in a bit of oversteer, but the Mosquito didn't show that. It only asked for
small hand movements when we flew precision figures. And it performed those figures
admirably in 10-12 rnph winds.
The kite's sensitivity opened up unexpected possibilities in advanced moves. We
could do stalls, slides and axels easily, even
in strong wind. The kite's rotational mass
M
S NMI: KllES . . . Continued
*pi
DATA CHART
Stunters
Mosquito
I
and sensitivity combined to make
double axels easier than usual.
We like to relaunch from face
down on the ground. The Mosquito
made this and most of our favorite
tumbling moves and ground play
easy. Even when the wind reached
25 mph, the kite showed no signs of
stress, either in the air or on the
ground.
While inexpensive, the Tandem
Mosquito is clearly not for beginners. It demands steady hands and
quick reflexes. Advanced fliers seeking high-wind fun at a minimum
investment will find the Tandem Mosquito in a class by itself.
-M.J.G.
I
1
1
1
1
1
1
I
Azur
RN
I
II
I
1
Tie-dyed Rok.
Manufacturer
High as a Kite Schwiemann
Flexifoii
hxhm?
$120
$350
RP
RN
nla
DT
Leading Edge Material
1
1
+-v
Name of Kite
.
Genki
Eddy
Carlisle
Stanfield
$120
$40
$250
$165
I
RN
RN
RN
RN
Dacron
Na
nla
Na
nla
260
4860
Retail Price
Sail Material
Bat
I
Na
1800
1
nla
6.0
Sail Depth at stand-offs (in.)
1800
1170
Sail Area (sq.in.)
1
2750
7.87
6.75
16.0
!
Weight (02.)
i
11.0
0.9
15.2
6.0
1.79
.54
1.25
1
Sail Loading (oz./sq.ft.)
0.5
0.5
0.45
0.03
10-30
2-15
5-25
4-20
2-1 0
4-20
4-15
80
50-150
I
80-150
I
100
N
8
I
15C-200
N
100
I-SK
VG
G
F
1-2
<I
G
VG
G
F
G
SI
M-F
SI
/
/
I
Suggested Line (Ibs.)
Skill Level Required
Assembly Time(minutes)
Ease of LaunchiRelaunch
I
:
Straight Speed
II
Speed in Turns
/
Ease of LandingIGroundWork
1
1
1
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1
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1
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1
1
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1
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1-2
VG
VG
VG
nla
nla
n/a
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n/a
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nia
II
nla
nla
nla
nla
I
The coniiguration of the basic I:lexi
G
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PreclsMniTracking
nia
ma
n/a
6-foot stacker has remained essen- I
L
M
M
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Amount of PUII
1 nia
nia
nia
nia
tially u n c h a ~ g ~f ti lr years, but HexiM
st
SI
'
Amount of Nolse
nia
ma
nia
nia
foil has recently introduced a new I
G
VG
G
visual AppealIGraphics
II VG
VG
G
E
\,ariant, the Pro Sped 6+, will1 liglltG
E
VG
Workmanship
1
E
E
E
wind performance and traction (bug- I VG
E
VG
1
Portability
1 VG
E
VG
VG
gy and boat) applications in mind.
G
VG
Durability
!
E
E
E
. .
-- .... . ..
..
.. .. ..
-.-The ncw sail pattern is attrac- NOTES: Retail price (US dollars) is "advertisedor "suggested."Wind range (mph)covers mlnlmum and maximum speeds deemed suittive, with two-thirds of it white and
able by our evaluators. Dimensions are in the following order: width x height. Measurements and (usually) drawings are made with the
bars of black and a neon color on
kite standing on the floor facing the viewer. Materials: RN-Ripstop Nylon, RP-Ripstop Polyester, DT-Dacron Tape, WD-Wooden
One end' The designersmade strutDowels, B-Bamboo, FG-F~berglass,GR-Graphite, EP-Epoxy, CF-Carbon Fiber, r-Rods, t-Tubes, MP-Molded Plast~c,V-Vinyl. Speed:
tllral changes too. They enclosed SL-Slow, M-Medium, F-Fast. Skill levels: N-Novice, I-Intermediate, SK-Skilled. Pull: L-Low, M-Med~um,H-High. Noise: SISilent, L-Low,
the spar to prevent tangling of stack M-Medium, H-High. Other ratings: P-Poor, A-Acceptable, G-Good, VG-Very Good, E-Excellent, nla-not applicable.
train lines (though the pocket material tends to pull on the outer cells and keep first, but calmed down after the fabric broke dem, etc.). I had no reservations about the
them from fully inflating). They installed a in, as the instructions warned.
upper limits of the X-oz polyester sail.
more open grid of mesh in the leading edge;
The pack had plenty of power, but a
Some of the differences between the Pro
used X-oz. ripstop polyester for the sail; and keen eye needs to be kept on the kites in Speed 6+ and the original Stacker are apparadded an ultralight or ultraflex spar instead lower winds because they don't seem to ent, others are more subtle. The kites' flight
of the heavier fiberglass. These physical stay locked in position in quick maneuvers. characteristics are not as smooth at first,
changes are targeted at making the Pro If you are not used to 100 feet of line and 4% but time and technique eventually bring
Speed 6+ better for both traction and single- feet between each kite, be sure to pay atten- you the much-loved Flexi feel.
kite flying, so we looked at both applications. tion to light poles, trees, signs, etc. Landing
The single kite launched easily in light
For traction, you need a stack of at least is not difficult, but remember to invert the winds. Flying it on 80-lb. Spectra line in
three, and for buggying as many as six or stack to prevent accidental relaunch.
lengths from 4@100 feet was a pleasure,
more kites. I flew a stack of six on 100 feet
The upper limit of the kite using the but a bit tricky with the ultraflex spar in
of 300 or 500 lb Spectra in winds ranging lightweight spar was around 15-18 mph. higher winds. Turns were tight, stalls and
from 8-14 mph using 54-inch spacing be- Lower this range if the winds are gusty floats were well executed, flips were smooth
tween kites. (I weigh around 230 pounds; because the pockets that enclose the rod and straight-line speed was good.
your mileage may vary.) Tests were on grassy keep it under tension. You can interchange
The advantages of this kite as a buggy
soccer fields that were level and hard.
your spars, and I recommend using the fiber- engine are its smooth, solid pull and its
Launching the stack was a bit easier with glass spar for heavier or gusty winds. This adaptability to a wide range of windspeeds.
the more flexible, lighter spar and the stiffer, interchangeability of spars is beneficial for You get that adaptability by varying the
lighter fabric.The new stack was unstable at varying conditions (e.g., wind, surface, tan- number of kites in your stack and the
I
I
I
6.0
Suggested Wind Range
1
RN
634
1
I
ProSpeed Speed Limit
One-Liners
1
I
I
I
II
I
types of spars in your Flexifoils.
The kite's disadvantagesinclude: length
of stack; unsteadiness in lighter winds; need
for a ground crew in certain wind and field
situations; and need for multiple spar sets.
As a single kite, this new model offers a
wider wind range and easier launching than
previous 6-foot models. But even as a single
kite, both spars are needed at times.
In general, the Pro Speed 6+ is an
improvement on the 6-foot Stacker. The
kite is a better light-wind flier than before.
In traction applications, a stack can work; it
has inherent drawbacksbut it does allow you
to tune the power. The expense of a 6-10kite stack with ultraflex and standard spars
mounts up pretty quickly. On the other
hand, so does having two or three or four
quad-line power kites for the same purpose.
You do the math!
Does this new Flexi meet its stated goals?
As a stacking kite or buggy engine, it performed fairly well. As a single kite, the
changes were pleasing. Only time will tell if
the enclosed spar is an improvement. I keep
a Flexifoil in my bag at all times. Its design
offers a different set of flight dynamics, and
with the Pro Speed 6+, the old dog may
-DA.
have learned a few new tricks.
Tie-DyedRokkaku
It's the fabric that catches your eye. Those of
us who know the ordeals of trying to dye ripstop gaze at it in awe. 5Billings of High as
a Kite in California has not only dipped his
fabrics in color, but-migosh-he's
tie-dyed
them! (Or is that Ty-dyed?-this guy's parents named him with foresight.)
Now if this were all, it would be plenty
but there's more. Somehow Ty's colors are
distinct. They don't mix together into a
mudbath in the sky, the way your t-shirtfrom-the-'60s would. There is a subtle patterning and artistry going on. The cloth is
striking on the ground but also holds its
own in the sky.
Again if this were all it would be plenty
but again there is more. Although Ty keeps
his trade secrets to himself, he sells his fabric to other manufacturers, such as Prism
Designs, so we get to see this brilliant ripstop
in a variety of configurations. Some of the
kites are entirely tie-dyed fabric, others use
Kite catches the sun.
-- Bottom left, Carllsle Kiteworks Genki speaks boldly.
'- Bottom right, Stanfield
- ..
I
Eddy rises like a feather.
"
pieces of it within white borders or backgrounds. The pieced designs seem to set off
the beauty of the fabrics all the more.
And still this is not all and still there is
more because Ty's kites also fly, and very
well. Two years ago we saw his first kites,
rather lackluster Eddys. Now he manufactures good Edos and rokkakus. We chose to
review a five-foot rokkaku made entirely of
tie-dyed ripstop.
The kite's flight was completely pleasing (as most rokkakus are for us). It rose to
the wind and responded to shifts with that
combination of grace and vitality that marks
this timeless design.
Our sample was edge-bound with black
grosgrain ribbon and framed with graphite
spars-in all respects well made. The knots
used to secure the bridle lines showed us this
kite was built by a studious and dedicated
flier. Here's a kitemaker who will outlast the
trendy revival of tie-dying. -KG.M.G.
Bat Fighter
We borrowed several fighter kites by the
prolific designerlmaker Frank Schwiemann
of Germany from the importer, Carlisle Kiteworks. All the kites were charmers in our
tests, but we chose to review the Bat because
it is the most representative and, in our
opinion, the most predictable flier.
The Bat's form is reminiscent of kites
from avid fighter-kiters Ludo Petit of France
and Tony Slater of England, but it is executed
in ripstop rather than paper or plastic.
As is frequently the case, the fabric skin
slows the fighter somewhat. However, its
high aspect ratio and light weight make up
for that. If the Bat is somewhat slow across
the sky in straight runs, it is very responsive
in maneuvers. It is a good choice for someone just getting acquainted with one-line
dirigible kites.
Construction details include hemmed
leading edges, fiberglass spars, sleeves for
the cross spar and spine and a brass ferrule
at the bend in the spine. Here's a lot of
finesse for the money, nicely conceived,
nicely done, nice to fly.
-M.G.
Carlisle Genki
This is not a kite for replacement players.
Major leaguers only need apply. This kite has
authority.
Nine feet across and three feet high, the
Genki by Kevin Shannon of Carlisle Kiteworks has the pulling power of a 50-squarefoot rokkaku. It is a worthy presentation of
the design originally created by Nop
Velthuizen of The Netherlands.
We're seeing Genkis everywhere these
days, maybe because they make a top-notch
platform for graphics. The works of Australia's Tony Wolfenden are a case in point. But
this is a design that can be kept simple with
great effect. The graphics on our Carlisle
Kiteworks model were simple geometries in
red, white and black: formal dress.
Details are well-executed throughout,
with double-stitched seams and straightgrain nylon ribbons as tie-downs.
The model tested originally had a tendency to become unstable in light winds. We
discovered the problem and the maker corrected it in production models.
We have drawn some criticism from time
WHAT'S NMI: KmS. . . Continued
Have you been looking
for love in all the
wong places?
to time for testing kites and then reporting
on the alterations made to fit our problems.
In those cases where the alterations work and
the builder listens, we can only say we are
-M.G.
happy to have helped.
Stanfield Eddy
S i n c e 1981, Trlby Kites has been working hard to make
falling in love with your kite easy. We've always felt that kite flying should
be a simple, economical pleasure, and not a matter of high prices and
complicated instructions. So every Trlby kite is designed to assemble quickly
and easily and to perform just as beautifully for a novice as for a seasoned
pro. Trlby Kites also come complete so there are never any difficult decisions
to make about selecting the proper accessories like kite line or handles.
To make sure that you and your Trlby are together for a long time, we make
our kites with the very finest materials, using the most innovative
manufacturing techniques. Most importantly, we back up our durabiliy and
quality claims with guarantees that are unparalleled - take the Trlby Duraply
Stunt Kite lifetime auarantee for instance!
Your quest for the best ends right here. Trlby Kites's quality, value and
guarantees are unmatched by any other kite in the world - so stop
searching and start falling in love!
Trlby Kites. Love A t First Flight.
MADE IN U.S.A.
01993 Trlby Products Inc
-
65 New Litchfield Street
Torrington, CT 06790
{800)328-7529 Fax {203/496-0267
Classic proportions, unclassic design: Bobby
Stanfield's Eddy kite weighs in at a mere
half-ounce per square foot.
Where Eddy had slack, Bobby has taut.
Where Eddy had pine, Bobby has linear
graphite tubing. Where Eddy had cotton,
Bobby has Koz ripstop polyester.
This kite might appear to embody today's
revolution in kitemaking at its apex. But
wait! Eddy probably did not expect his kite
to be flown in winds below 8 mph. The
Stanfieldversion doesn't expect winds above
8 mph. This Eddy will soar, overfly and
require attention above 8-10 mph winds. It
will fly, but you'll want to slacken the sail
and maybe tape a lead sinker to its spine at
a point about one-third up from the tail
point. With adjustments, the kite will more
nearly emulate the original Eddy creation.
The fittings on this kite give you tensioning options of every conceivable kindBobby's trademark. Theoretically, you can
adjust this kite to any wind. For example,
loosening the tip fittingswill give the sail an
Eddy-esque billow for more lift forward.
But Bobby's kites are really made for flying
in a zephyr, not a gale.
Bobby's graphics usually emphasize the
kite's shape, and this one does so especially well. It sparkles diamond-like as it flies.
Last but not least is the celebrated Stanfield craftsmanship. Every seam is so accurate it seems that the maker has been emulating Adrian Conn's unreal standard: any
stitch that's off by 11100th of an inch gets
ripped out.
All this refinement generally comes at a
good price. The Eddy is a less expensive
way to enjoy both Bobby's design sense
and his applied technology.
If you're one of those who suffer from
low-wind days, you'll be grateful to have
-M.G./VIG.
Bobby's Eddy along.
fornia) for assistance and consultation in
obtaining some of the kites for these reviavs.
E 5 Sizes - 18,26,40, H& & Hi60 sq.ft. E Now in lCAREXTM too!
E Trailing edge flaps for easy turning. E Superior aerofoil shape.
E Inner thru-venting stops cell collapse. E Pre-set no fuss bridle.
* ASK YOUR
A
n
KT
IE DEALER O
f R MORE DETAL
IS!
*
"-
LONG
BEACH,
W A
Y
8 Made by Flexifoil International.
8 The latest two-line for trick Freestyle.
x
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8 Available in Carrington K42 or ICAREXfM.
If
[I
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P O . Box 1086, Island Heights. NJ 08132
* Ph 908 506-0461 - FAX 908 506-0388
Full size, totall tested,
completely etailed
d'
rKITE PATTERNS
Washington
Four patterns to help you create
a kite with your choice
of fabric colors and framing:
XlTR Sport KiteTM
1
For Information, Write:
WSIKF
P.O. Box 387
Long Beach, WA 98631
or Phone:
Wind CheaterTM
6-foot Delta CumulusTM
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Right, the week after the commemorative
flight, young Jai Rice takes a ride
in the sky in Mooloolaba, Queensland.
Below, the crew walks Simon's set of
Hargrave boxes to Stanwell Park beach.
1
i
Nove
&$hr /%,di
Phtopybdk & $k01 he/di & h& B&hd
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S
tanding in my workshop a week
before the Lawrence Hargrave Centenary fly, I suddenly realized what a
fantastic opportunity this was-I was
attempting to recreate a piece of history.
I'm sure Lawrence Hargrave had no idea
that 100 years after his sky-breaking feat of
lifting himself 16 fect off the ground with
four box kites, Australians would spend a
weekend celebrating his achievement. But
that event is now written into aeronautical
and kiting history, and the Centenary Fly
was an occasion that I could not miss.
The organization of the Centenary wasn't
actually in the hands of the kitefliers. Locals
living in the Stanwell Park area had organized a centenary committee and had invited the Australian Kite Society to organize
kitefliers for the event. The organizing committee also arranged for fly-bysof historic aircraft, hang-gliding demonstrations and
aeronautical displays. (As a word of expla-
I
nation, for historical reasons kitefliers in
New South Wales formed the Australian
Kite Society, and kitefliers in Victoria formed
the Australian Kite Association. There have
been attempts to integrate the two state
bodies into a national body, but the attempt
has never made it to fruition.)
Helen Bushell, past secretary of the
Australian Kite Association, kindly aided
me in my quest to recreate Hargrave's manlift by being my seamstress for a week. I
told Helen if we failed to comulete the kites
we could always wait another 100 years
and try again!
But we did finish the kites, although
they didn't get their inaugural assembly
until I was actually on Stanwell Park beach.
Stanwell Park is approximately 30 miles
south of Sydney. The beach and surrounding hillsides and cliffs had been owned by
the Hargrave family in the late 1800s.Now,
holiday houses surround the original family homesteads.
Ted Coles, the president of the Australian
Kite Society, pointed out that the narrow
angle of the bay made an attempt possible
only if the winds came across the sea from
the southeast through the northeast. Any
other wind direction meant the wind would
come over land or cliffs and be too turbulent.
Much to everyone's surprise, we had
two days of steady southeast winds and
bright sunshine. This was surprisingbecause
the two trial flys held in November 1993
and 1992had been windless or washed out.
Left, the Hargrave Memorial stands proudly on Bald HIII. The plaque reads:
"Lawrence Hargrave, 1850-1915. Whose pioneering research in aeronautics
with engines, monoplanes and box kites, much of whlch was carried out at
stanwell Park, played B vital role in the development of the aeroplane:'
Above, Hargrave reproduction kites show that finely carved wood can be an
I exceilent form of fremlng.
n our drive to Stanwell Park beach, tributions to their sport.
Only two Hargrave trains were to be
e stopped at the lookout which
contains a memorial to Lawrence launched on the weekend: my fiberglass
Hargrave and his efforts in attempt- and ripstop creations, and a more tradiing manned flight. A mile or two from tional wood and cotton train built some
the hilltop, we could see his recently years ago by engineering students from
restored family home. The memorial site nearby University of Wollongong. I assemis also a hang glider and paraglider launch- bled my four kites by noon and at 2 p.m. we
ing site. ?'he local hang gliding fraternity were ready for a launch attempt. Even
was firmly behind the organization of the though I was aided by most of the directors
festival, to acknowledge Hargrave's con- of the Australian Kite Sodety-Peter Dettrickf
0
NWt
'ARb
The view from
Bald Hill shows
Hargrave's
home, Hill
Crest, now set
in a retirement
village.
High
Performance
Wide Color
Selection
Full Line of
Stunt Kites
and Accessories
best-known book on Hargrave, Lawrence
Ted Coles, Godfrey Gamble, Hans Bleekerlight winds made the launch of the train dif- Hargrave: Explorer, Inventor & Aviation
ficult. But once up, the train flew steadily for Experimenter. Many members of the Hargrave
two and a half hours. We moored the kites family also attended.
to a vehicle we parked on the beach.
Even though my train did not lift me into
Just after launch, I grabbed hold of the the air, it did win a prize for the best
flying line (the bottom line was 0.3" Kevlar) Hargrave kite built of modern materials.
and lifted my legs onto it. The train held my The prize, donated by Aerospace Technoweight quite comfortably a foot above the logies of Australia, was a handsome book of
ground. Unfortunately the wind, at 10-12 paintings of early aircraft.
The next weekend I took the kite train up
mph, was just at the threshold of supporting my weight (160 lbs.), and that one foot to Mooloolaba, Queensland, for "Air Affair
I was lifted was as high as I raised myself all '94," the Queensland state titles and kite
weekend. We had all thought replicating festival. Around midday on Sunday, Philip
McConnachie, Tony Rice, Mark Warwick,
Hargrave's feat was going to be easy!
On the other hand, Hargrave had wind Andrew Mamie and I launched five Hargrave
speeds of 21 mph! A few more knots and we box kites in train, and I was successfully
lifted to 60 feet (Peter Lynn was a witness).
would have exceeded Hargrave's success.
It was exhilarating and almost otherWind conditions on Sunday were slightly lighter, and I couldn't even replicate my worldly to be lifted. What struck me most
low-altitude dangling. Since the cotton and dramatically after the hurried activity of
wood train was heavier and more porous, it launching the train was the sudden silence
too failed. However, the reproduction kites and tranquility I felt as soon as I was a few
showed what an adaptable material wood is feet off the ground. The sensation was simfor framing. The wood's hand-carved, ilar to being lifted in a very smooth elevator.
tapered bracing gave strength just where it The green sports field below and all the
was required. And the wood minimized other kitefliers shrank rapidly as I ascended.
weight, a solution difficult to achieve with I gave a quick wave to the crowd as I considered releasing the dead-man handle to
carbon or fiberglass rod.
descend down the flying line. Then the
hough the festival was small, it wind dropped--and I descended as smoothattracted a varied group who were ly as I had risen.
The train's next flight will be at the New
impressed and affected by Hargrave's
work. Besides kitefliers, there were avi- Zealand International
ators, historians, museum curators, members Kite Festival, March ;
of the Royal Aeronautical Society (where 1995. I'm looking forHargrave had presented some of his ward to it.
V
research), representatives of aeronautical
research labs and engineers involved in the
early development of the hang glider. Helen
commemorated
Bushel1 was particularly excited to meet
with an
Nancy Bird, one of Australia's most intrepid
Australian
early pilots. She also met the wife of W.
postage stamp
Hudson Shaw, one of the authors of the
issued in 1994.
7-
4
I?.
: I KITE LINES I WINTER-SPRING 1995
WHAT'S HEW: BOOKS
In Honor of Lawrence Hargrave
By Valerie Govig & Robert S. Price
Delightfully Technical
Ravensbourne to Airborne: Aspects ofLawrence
Hargrave's Contribution to the Science of
Aeronautics by David A. Craddock (Epping,
Australia: David A. Craddock, 1994))paperback, 57 pages, $24.95.
Lawrence Hargrave is a legendary figure in
the development of modem kites and aeronautics. It is fitting that during 1994Hargrave
Year in Australia, a researcher would publish
material from Hargrave's notebooks.
David Craddock, aeronautical engineer,
aviation historian and vice-president of the
Lawrence Hargrave CommemorativeAssodation 1994-95, has made this effort through
two self-published books.
In evaluating this volume and Hargrave's
work we must remember that he was working with limited resources in the late dawn
of modem aviation before a reasonably complete, working understanding of aerodynamics had been developed. He was attacking the problems of flight almost blindfolded
with little or no proven theory to guide him.
As a result, as Craddock makes abundantly
clear, many of his efforts were misdirected or
terminated before substantial results could be
achieved.
This book is a review of Hargrave's work
on aerodynamics, gliders and kites up
through his first successful manlift. He started by making measurements of aerodynamic
drag and lift on simple surfaces, flat and
cambered. He developed rotating arm machines for testing specimens on circular
paths. Unfortunately his experimental program was limited and incomplete so the
results were not as useful as they might have
been if he had been more persistent.
Hargrave must be given great credit for
building a prodigious variety and quantity
of kites, from small to large, from simple to
complex. Without a true understanding (if
there is such a thing) of the aerodynamics,
he built kites that flew, and flew well. His
kites, like his person, are truly legendary.
Ravensbourne to Airborne covers the saga
completely. It depends on illustrations
(sketches) from Hargrave's notebooks showing his equipment, concepts and designs.
They are not working drawings by any
means; details of proportioning and construction are left to another book (see following).
M U C ~ of
this book is
delightfully
t ech n icaI,
exploring Har- '
grave's ideas,
theories and
beliefs in light
I I
/
of
modern
Hargrave sketch of his 1894 glider as shown In Ravensbourne to Airborne.
aerodynamics. Note kite string: Craddock says there is no evldence the glider was tethered.
At the end of
the work there is a 15-itembibliography with construction techniques. Most of the parts
could be made in a well-equipped home
listings on fluid dynamics.
My main objection to the book concerns workshop, though some of the metal bendthe mixing of text and figures without much ing for airfoils might be difficult. It appears
separation. This problem is compounded to me that Hargrave had access to a local
by the nonsequential numbering of the fig- hardware store (ironmongery) and used
ures. You may have to hunt through sever- whatever material came to hand, just as
al pages to find the desired figure. The pre- occurs in a modem kite builder's workshop.
sentation is inelegant and sometimes low in In his introduction, Craddock suggests
legibility.The binding should be a bit more changes to allow for availabilityof materials
robust; a couple of staples could have fixed and personal work preferences.
that. Finally, there are no photographs of
I scarcely feel qualified to comment on
Hargrave's creations, a lack explained prob- the drawings and kites described in this
ably by cost considerations or by owner- booklet. For one thing, I do not know all the
kite designs that Hargrave built so I have no
ship of the originals.
In spite of these quibbles, this book is a measure of how good the selection is. Howgood, objective overview of the covered por- ever, the choices are limited to kites of moderate or small size (with the exception of a
tion of Lawrence Hargrave's work. -R.S.P.
hang glider) and do not appear to include
ConstructionDrawings for a Selection of Kites any of Hargrave's more practical large box
Designed by Lawrence Hargrave compiled and kites, such as those he used for his man-liftdrawn by David A. Craddock (Epping,Aus- ing flight. If larger plans are the ones you
tralia: David A. Craddock, 1994))paperback, want, you will not find them here.
Again, this is a very plain production,
25 pages, $16.95.
This book is exactly what its title states. casual in style and perhaps not meant to be
There is almost no written material and no seriously regarded as a book. There is some
evaluation of the pedormance of any design. degree of order: the designs are arranged
This is because the booklet is a supplement chronologically. For the kites he has selector companion to Craddock's Ravensbourne to ed, Craddock has done a satisfactory job of
Airbome (see above). Its detailed construction filling in the details and making replication
drawings should enable you to build replicas possible.
-R.S.l?
of about a dozen Hargrave kites.
However, if you are interested in flying Book News & F0l'eCaSt.S
the kite after buildmg it, you should certainly Bikes, Kites &Human Interest..
refer to Ravensbourne, since the only com- Pedalling Unknown Paths by Michele Veltment in Construction Drawings concerning huizen-de Vries (Sussex, England: The Book
flyability is what you might infer from a Guild Ltd., 1995),softcover, 292pagesI£8.95
brief explanation of how the "soaring" kites (approximately $14 US).
How to classify this book? It's not really
were flown-that is, how they were flown to
minimize damage from crashes.
a kite book, but it isn't quite a bicycle book,
If you choose to build and fly an authen- or a travel book, or an essay on American life
tic version of one of these kites, you would either. It's all these-as well as a personal
certainly have to go a long way back in diary that will interest any Mends of Mich6le
1
. & I
.
WINTER-SPRING 1995 1 KITE LINES 1 23
i
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10373 N.E. State Highway $104
P.O. BOX 672
KINGSTON, WASHINGTON USA 98346
and Nop Velthuizen, well-known and wellliked kiters from The Hague, Netherlands.
Kites appear in this book only in an
appendix about kite aerial photography (a
short, basic description of equipment and
method) and in scattered mentions during
the journey.
The real subject is the expedition itself, a
remarkable 14 month tour of the U.S., covering 32 states and 16,000 miles, all on
recumbent bicycles. Along the way the
Velthuizens could be found pitching their
homemade tent everywhere from wellappointed campsites to cemeteries; traveling
with heavy traffic on expressways or on
lonely paths; surviving frigid temperatures,
tornadoes and roasting sunshine by turns;
and enjoying incomparable scenery and
hospitality along the way.
I found most interesting Michele's comments on America-its smog and overpopulation, its automobile dependency, its
excessivewatching of the "vile device" television, its bad eating habits. Ouch!- truths
as painful as those of the astute 19th century observer Alexis de Tocqueville.
Pedalling Unknown Paths reads like an
honest Mendly letter, with no opinions withheld. The words concentrate on vegetation
and wildlife while passing over whole cities
with a paragraph ("San Francisco wasnlt at all
bad for a city"). Niagara Falls was described
entirely in terms of its tourists.
Sixteen high-quality color photographs
add interest. Maps appear from time to time
(though not all stops are shown on them).
Appendixes are supplied for persons inspired
to travel long distances by bicycle, and they
make diverting reading in themselves.
(However, the list of equipment does not
include kites!-probably an oversight,
because I know the couple took four.)
Rattling along with its many typographical errors, as a diary would, the writing can rise to an occasion when it needs to.
I was moved by Michele's encounter with
the Sequoias and her sight of a rainbow
after snow in Arizona. Pure human interest
fills every page. I laughed out loud reading
about Brother Piercy's breakfast offer in
Manila, Arkansas.
This is not a book that will end up on anyone's list of Great Literature, but it is useful,
charming and worth the read.
Kite Poetry.. .
Cuentos Poemas y Cometas (Stories, Poems &
Kites) by Luis Reinaldo Escalante (Santafe de
Bogoki, Colombia: EdiaonesNovus Milenius,
1994), paperback, 79 pages, $16.
For our Spanish-speakingreaders, here's
an unusual find, a book of 15 poems and six
brief stories, all about kites. While poems on
kite themes are common, a whole book full
of them by one writer is, to our knowledge,
unique. Our Spanish-fluent friends tell us the
writing is good. On top of that, the book is
attractively laid out and embellished by Luis
Ignazio Ortiz with appealing water-color
paintings of typical Colombian kites.
Note: The above books will not be carried in
the Kite Lines Bookstore and may be"hardto
find elsewhere. However, you can order
them from the publishers, as follows:
Pedalling Unknown Paths
The Book Guild, Temple House
25-6 High Street, Lewes
East Sussex, BN7 2LU, England
Cuentos Poemas y Cometas
Dr. Luis Reinaldo Escalante
Calle 59, #lo-20, Apto. 301
Bogota, Colombia
.
Just out and coming soon..
This just in from Switzerland,Drachen: Spiele
mit dem Wind (Kites:Games with the Wind)by
Swiss enthusiast Rainer Neuner. Too late for
a full review this issue, but a quick look
shows a lot of charm and color plus plans for
eight kites and five wind toys.. .D& If you
have not yet seen The Millennium Whole
Earth Catalog, try your local bookstore. This
major work of collective wisdom, reincarnated every six years or so, has a kite section
(under 'Teaming:Play Tools") written by our
kitemaker friend Win Colwell, a Vermonter
now living in California.. .mo Tal Streeter's
book, A Kite Journey T h m g h India, which was
to have been published last Christmas, will
be out next Christmas (but we suggest you
have an alternate holiday gift ready just in
case) ...D& We hear that David Gomberg's
long-runningbook Stunt Kites! will next be
translated into German.. .D& Leland Toy's
family was planning to republish the deceased kiter's book Kite Patferns in a slightly
expanded form this January. We are still
waiting hopefully.. .
-KG.
One of the prize-winning kites In the
student category flies above the flying
field at Konstfact School.
NORDIC EXPERIENCE
Article by I S T V BODOCZKY
~
Photographs by BEPPE ARVIDSON & &TON
I
n the last 10years I have been to many
international kiting events, mainly in
Europe, and afterwards I felt each one
was a unique occasion. Yet my five days of
kiting in Stockholm May 17-22 last year
were different in many ways.
CSERNY
Since 1965 there has been a traditional,
well-attended Drakfesten (kite festival) in
Stockholm, always held in May. This year it
was organized by Konstfact, Stockholm's
Art and Design School, which was celebrating its 150th anniversary.
a*
WINTER-SPRING 1995 1 KITE LINES / 23
Above and right, students in the
workshop show off their paper and
bamboo kites.
Below, dancing is a break from kitemaking.
A four-day kite workshop and festival provided an impressive celebration of students'
work and made this celebration really mernorable. I was one of the six teachers invited
to conduct the workshop of "Sky Sculpture"
for students of design, architecture and arts
and crafts.
By lucky coincidencethe school had the
perfect flying field right next to it. We held
the workshop in a big tent in the middle of
area. This way the school and
the large gr&
the field were connected by activity, not
merely by geography. The field became an
integral part of the school through an act of
"spiritual conquest."
The workshop students lived together
on an old sailboat anchored in a b a y k the
center of Stockholm. They had come from
different Nordic countries-Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland and of course
Sweden--and this gave the workshop an
extra dimension. The studentshad different
levels of skill in kite building. Some had little experience and others brought their own
kites with them. First we suggested they
make a paper and bamboo copy of a well26 1 KITE LINES / WINTER-SPRING 1995
I
I
known kite. Next they worked on their own
designs. Some students chose to work with
fragile ephemeral materials, such as paper
and bamboo, while others were more interested in stronger, modern materials.
By the end of the four-day workshop,
there was a great variety of kites. Some students had built three-dimensional constructions; others built interesting "outlines"
(flat kites). Some went for the beauty of the
forms; others went for the aerodynamics.
Some focused on surface design; others
focused on construction. In spite of the limiting factors of materials, techniques and
time, nearly all the basic approaches to kite
building were present: geometric and organ-
ic, small and large, simple and elaborate,
aerodynamically considered and "just" fantastic, humorous or poetic.
Sometimes the students would come up
with the most unlikely structures and ask
me, "Do you think it will fly?" I tried not to
be too discouraging. All I could say was "I
don't think so, but try it!" When they came
back to the tent after the test flight with a
wide grin on their faces and said "It flies!" I
knew they were hooked. "Beginners luck,"
they would modestly say and go on feverishly improving their designs.
The days were long, only interrupted by
the occasional sauna in the nearby school
building and of course, by the meals. A spe-
cial emphasis was placed on the food. We
had the most sumptuous dinners, cooked by
a student on the spot, right in the tent. I
think everyone appreciated this combination of intellectual and sensual experience.
Also, we enjoyed excellent live music and
wen a mechanical theater show in the tent.
This music provided more than just background entertainment to the kite-building
workshop and festival. The traditional
Japanese drumming, the Hawaiian, African,
Russian, pop and occasionally improvised
music throughout the workshop made us
feel that kiting was not something esoteric,
but indeed an organic part of all human
expression.
getting applause for a performance.
Though many kite clubs
and internationally known
fliers (among them the
Swedish kite author Olle
Nessle and the Finnish kite
author MArten Bondestam)
attended the festival, they
were not spotlighted. he
"professionals" mixed in with the crowd.
Apart from a competition that gave prizes to
the most original and humorous kites, there
was no "organized" kiting.
The whole festival was so unpretentious
yet so well thought-out and executed in
such a seemingly effortless way that you
felt things just happened all by themselves.
The kite festival itself was simply amazing. The person responsible for all this was the
I had never seen so many people attending "sod of the event," Bengt Carling, an artist,
and actively participating in a festival before. kiteflier and professor at Konstfaa School.
There must have been about 50,000people Carling had a team of enthusiastic, loyal
on the fields around the tent. A big crowd assistants, but he still looked after everylike that often causes stress and frustration, thing himself, however insi@cant (carespecially for the kitefliers, yet here the rying benches, buying more materials, etc.)
atmosphere was very relaxed.
He was everywhere, did everything-he
Most kite festivals set up restricted areas hardly slept-but his humor never failed
for the large kites and the stunt kites. Here him. He was always prepared for a bit of fun,
there were no restrictions and no bars to for some kiting, dancing or chatting. He
keep the crowd out of the main flying field. recharged everyone around him with his
The emphasis was not on dazzling the powerful, radiating personality.
crowd with various kite wonders but ensurSo many of us are desperately seeking
ing that everyone could really participate wholeness; this festival gave me the opporrather than just watch. No one was made to tunity to experience it. Everything came
feel uneasy or ashamed to fly their some- together in such a natural way, there was
times clumsy or commercial kites. And the such a beautiful balance between soul and
serious kitefliers did not mind keeping their body, nature and humans, kitefliers and the
beautiful kites on the ground or flying them rest of the world, that I felt revitalized. It was
only later in the day, after the crowd had like experiencing a great work of art that
thinned out. The sight of so many people has real cathartic power, which is not only
enjoying themselves was far better than fun but is capable of changing your life. 9
n A.
Above left, IstvSrnBoddczky (center) confers
with a student and Bengt Carling (right).
Above, the elephant takes over the field.
Below, Olle Nessle flies Mona Lisa in a
THEFESTIVAL
Istvan Bod&zky is a noted artist, teacher and
kitemaker @om Budapest, Hungary. His art and
his kites have come so close together that "they
completely converge," he says,"I can't define
which is which anymore."
WINTER-SPRING 1995 / KITE LINES 127
I
To Our Customers:
we at
Guildworks Flight Studio
Synergy-Qeca
"BEST NEW KITE"
would like to
thank you,
for your support
6
awarded by The Kite Trade
Association international 1/95
?
INNOVATIONS 95
in1994.
P
New state-of-the-art kites for
every budget
d
synergy-Deca~M15
Synergy-DecaTM31
Synergy-DecaTM Zero-WindTM
Minergy-DecalMZero-WindTM
Ready-to-fly set-ups with new
high-tech, h~gh-designhandles,
complete with SpectraTMflying
line
Specifically designed and manufactured kite construction
details:
Kevlar 'cored DacronTM tension lines on hiah-wind models
~ r ~ h - ~ u a l i t ~ " ~tension
~ectra~~
lines on low-wind models
New tension-line anchorage;
no more s l i o ~ e dknots
Super li$t, flexible and
durable sail end attachments
Sails assembled
and sewn with adhesive
technology and triple-step
zrg-zag stitch
- ~ a c h i n e dspar-to-tension
line connections
Revised
Owner's Manual
including easyto-follow photos
New hot color
selection
Customdesigned Avia
Sport G-Force ".
and Excel carbon
spars (including
G-Force CenterG, and G ForceIExcel
Breezes developed exclusively
for Guildworks
)
Flight StudioTM
New fast-paced
video
would like to
support YOU.
If you currently
own one of
4
Synergy-DecaTM
Zero-WindTM
photo by John Del
Rosario
mM
*A
@
you are, and
how we can
make your flying
experience
better. We
also want to
provide YOU
with free updates &
improvements
to our kites.
In 1995, the
Best New Kite*
in the industry
is better than ever,
because
we responded to
your
suggestions.
KITES
"No other kite produces so
distinct a sense of hooking up
with the wind." American Kite
(Review of Jordan Air Pro) - TBK
-
A
send you our new high-techMinergy
handlesTM . These new handles are
beautiiul and we want you to have
them for free.
Register your kite and we will send
you these free handles along with a
newly revised owner's manual.
O
X
O
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O
A
If you are a Synergy-Decal" owner, we want you to know we have
improvedthe tensional system of our kites. No more slipped knots
that cause constant tuning.
Register your kite and we will replace the entire tensional system at no cost and enclose our improved manual.
Simply send your kite to the address below, or call us.
If you live outside the U.S.A. please contact Guildworks Flight
Studio or your local dealer before sending your kite.
5tunt Buggy
AND
Light wind
IN 1995, GUILDWORKS FLIGHT STUDIO IS MORE COMMITTED
THAN EVER TO CONTINUED QUALITY INNOVATION AND TO
PROVIDING EXTRAORDINARY KITES TO SATISFY YQU.
Guildworks Flight Studio, 181 Elliott Street, Suite 803, A-1, 33,
Beverly, MA 01915, U.S.A.
Phone 508-921-4069
Fax 508-921-2919
P
28 I KITE LINES I WINTER-SPRING 1995
.
036 n w 2 0 t h terr., gainesvilie. florida 3 2 8 0 3
ph: 9 0 4 - 3 7 3 - 7 0 1 0
fax:
ernail: [email protected]
Kitemaking with
ADHESIVES
Article by tick Curran
'ou say you can't sew? You don't even
own a sewing machine? And you want
to build kites out of ripstop polyester or
nylon?
You can! Bond 'em together.
You can't reliably sew some materials
together anyway.Just look at Mylar polyester
film.If you sew it, the stuff tears like bathroom tissue. The filmseparates at the needle
holes because the load is concentrated along
all those perforations and Mylar tears easily.
Illustrationsby Ron Pmli
All we really need to do
then is match up a modem
high-tech adhesive to our kite
material. We need an adhesive
that will hold the loads
involved without "creeping,"
i.e., slowly sliding apart.
The Big Advantages
While adhesive bonding generally isn't faster than sewing,
it has other advantages. It withstands shock loading better, as
when a gust hits your kite sail.
It spreads the load evenly along
the seam, preventing load concentrations at spars and bridle
points. This is espeaally helpful
with light materials, such as
Mylar giftwrap or Orcon's AN-36 reinforced
Mylar film (informallycalled "ripstop Mylar").
And of course adhesivebonding supplies are
a lot less to buy than a sewing machine. A 15yard roll of tape, enough for about five average-size kites, costs only about $4.
GUlOEllNE Q
Pick the R i ~ hAdhesive
t
Adhesives come iTmany forms, such as liquids out of tubes or cans, but pressure-sensitive double-sided tapes are almost ideal
for kites. This is because of their no-mess, nofuss nature, and their ability to give you a
sharp, clean joining line.
After much research into the hundreds
of tapes available, I found 3M Company's
VHB acrylic resin, in their A-10 family, to be
the strongest and most durable.This is a resin
transfer adhesive, which comes on a paper separator (called scrim) and differs from standard tapes (such as Scotch) because the backing comes off the adhesive in use. This
adhesive comes in different widths (I", %",
X" and slit narrower on special order) and in
different thicknesses defined by product
number, such as 9460PC for .002".We have
found that the 9460PC is the most useful for
kitemaking.
With this tape, and Orcon's AN-36 reinforced Mylar, members of the Pierce County
Kitefliers Association in Washington state
have made ultralight stunt kites that fly in
1-2 mph winds, and box kites that withstand winds up to 25 mph. We've also
adhesively bonded kites of woven cloth,
such as ripstop polyester (e.g., Icarex).
This tape adheres best to Mylar film, and
not so well to ripstop fabrics, but better to
polyester than to nylon ripstop. On nylon
the adhesive sticks better to the coated side.
The advantages of the 9460PC adhesive
over other double-sided tapes are that it is
clear, thin and lightweight, has low tack and,
once bonded to the surface, will not slide or
creep apart under load. Most double-sided
tapes are made with high tack and they slowly flow (creep) over any roughness to cover
all the surface area. This flow is what allows
your kite seams to slide apart under load. The
9460PC has high internal strength, which is
the reason it does not creep or gum up your
needle if you sew through it.
However, to get the most holding power,
WINTER-SPRING 1995 / KITE LINES 129
KITECHNOLOGY
you must put some energy into the 9460PC
to make it flow over ripstop. Heat and pressure from ironing will do this. The heat also
dries out the ripstop, driving off surface moisture that can lower bond strength.This is why
you have to iron nylon longer; it holds more
moisture and is harder to bond to.
Be aware: the 9460PC adhesive will not
stick to ripstop the way the 3M data sheets
advertise. Those ads say you'll get 75% of the
strength in 20 minutes and 100% in three
days, but their tests were done on aluminum,
which is smooth and dry-the adhesive
sticks to it aggressively (i.e., it has a higher
surface energy than nylon or polyester).You
will get some strength for ripstop just from
initial tack and you can increase this somewhat by rubbing or rolling, but the real
increase comes from raising the temperature
and pressing firmly for two or three minutes
with your iron. This gets you the chemical
activity that makes a bond to the ripstop.
Do you need this maximum strength for
your kite? If it's a small kite for light winds,
probably not. We have flown kites using
just initial tack and rolling pressure. The
performance with this will be similar to
what you get with the familiar older product called Seamstick and with a different
3M family, called A-25 (product number
9500 or 926). Our testing has shown that %"
lap seams on all three of these adhesives
will hold 10 pounds on a one-inch-wide
specimen of ripstop for one to two minutes. But after ironing, Seamstick still fails in
one to two minutes and 926 fails in 17rninUtes. However, the %"-wide
9460PC adhesive
held 10pounds for 8,640 minutes (six days)
and showed no signs of separation. David
Lord of our club did some stress calculations
on a standard stunt kite in 35 mph winds and
found that seam loads are 5 lbstinch or less,
so 10 lbs is a good safety factor.
Why Use This Tape?
I chose this particular adhesive not only
because it has the lowest creep (i.e., highest
internal strength),but also because it has low
initial tack. However, as a resin transfer adhesive it does require slightly different application techniques from the usually available double-stick tapes. With no scrim or
internal carrier, it can't be removed from the
paper separator and handled as a separate
piece. You must first apply the 9460 PC
adhesive to one side of the seam, then rub
or roll on the paper backing to get the adhesive to stick better than it does to the paper
(or it will come off with the paper). Before
rubbing or rolling, you can still peel the
adhesive and the paper back up and reposition it. After removing the paper, if you
have pressed lightly on a seam, you can
reopen it.
The high internal strength of this adhesive helps you put your kite together in
various ways. For example, if you have a
highly loaded area you need to reinforce,
you can stitch right through it without
gumming up your needle. If you need to,
you can also slit the tape to whatever width
you need. Just pull it past a sharp edge
(razor blade or knife) stuck in a block of
wood, keeping the paper side to the wood.
Push pins can be used as guides.
give enough strength, and are also easy to
handle. Strips of this adhesive narrower
than %" are hard to slit, store and apply. On
the other hand, normally you don't need
the strength from strips Mder than X".
How to Design Joints for Bonding
Try to design all your bonded seams to load in shear,
possibly in combination
with flatwise loading, but
never in peel. Change the
90-degree loading (e.g., a
i
3
\
delta keel joint) from peel to /
shear by bonding sail material across the open side of
the joint (Fig. 1-C).
You can hem sails (Fig.
GUIDELINE 0
3) by simply applying the
adhesive along the edge of
It's imp%ant you understand the types.of the sail, then folding the Fig. 2. alternaload on a kite's seam. Theoretically, a bond- edge over. You can get addi- tive loadings
in three-angle
ed joint can be loaded flatwise (perpendic- tional strength or resistance
sea,s
ular to the plane), in shear (in the same to flapping or flutter by
plane) or inpeel. Think of it as removing an applying a strip of
adhesive bandage stuck to the skin on your adhesive, then a
arm.If you could pull up on all the adhesive strip of sail
edge with adhesive
at once (imagine a block of wood stuck to al, then another
your arm),you would be loading the adhe- strip of adhesive, then folding the edge
sive in flatwise tension. If you pull the over. You now have the equal to a doublewhole tape sidewise, in shear, it's hard to pull sided adhesive with a scrim in the middle.
An easier way to reinforce a hem is to use
off. But if you pull the tape up (90 degrees
to your skin), in peel, it peels right off. For 3M's acrylic adhesive A-25 in the form of
a kite seam, you load in shear or flatwise but product number 9500. This adhesive has a
higher tack than 9460PC and will creep
never in peel.
more under high loads, but it has a Mylar
sewing a piece of kite
scrim. I think you'll have more success for
sail material to a second
hems with 9500 than with the better-known
piece, and loading it at 90 1
product Seamstick because 9500 is stronger
degrees (i.e., like a delta's
and its scrim doesn't stretch. Stretching
keel) is fairly common (Fig.
Seamstick when applying it causes wrin1-A). Normally, the load
GOOD
kles or puckers in hems as the Seamstick
transfers to the middle of /
scrim "relaxes."
the second piece through
c 'ilIn a fashion sithe thread. But a bonded
milar to hemming,
seam loaded this way peels
you can make a
apart (Fig. I-B). AU the load
sleeve for a small
concentrates along a line
spar or cord. Leave
at the very edge of the
space for the spar
bonded seam. The seam
could be a foot wide, but none of that width inside the fold. This
carries any load (just like that bandage only works for thin
spars. Larger spars
removed from your skin):
A bonded seam best holds shear loads. start to load the
This is where the load direction is in the same seam in peel because of their diameter. Fig.
plane as the adhesive layer. Joining two 4 shows how to sleeve larger spars.
Pockets for spar ends may also benefit
pieces of material with an overlap (lap seam)
from redesign for adhesive bonding. An
loads the entire width of the adhesive.
Widths of 9460PC between Xu and XI' example is the pocket at the base of the
?f
~7
Uesiun to Prevent Peel
1
Y
-
l r-
~
I forcement patches, it's a
spine in an Eddy kite. If the bonded pocket
only contacts the back of the sail, it may be
loaded in peel and eventually fail. You can
reinforce it by bonding additional strips of
material across the peel intersection as mentioned earlier.
You can further reinforce a spar-end
pocket by wrapping the edges of the pocket around to the front of the sail. This way
the pocket may open somewhat, but it
won't peel away from the sail under load.
Stitching through the pocket and the sail,
along the edges, is an alternative technique
that further reduces peel.
It may not always be best to design bonded seams that mimic traditional sewn construction. Kites designed with spar sleeves
and pockets are harder to make with adhesives, but you can make them in other ways.
One good example is the comer of a
rokkaku. This kite is often finished with
pockets, but using a stop on the spar with a
cable tie going through a reinforcement
patch (what Bobby Stanfield calls the
"bump" technique*) makes sail construction easier.
good idea to apply the
adhesive to the whole
underside of the reinforcement. This is one
I time when 1" or wider
tape comes in handy.
Always iron these reinforcements at higher temperature.
If a seam tends to
open up under load, even
after ironing at high temperature, look for peel
loads and redesign the
joint. You can also make
a wider joint or go to a
double over la^ to get
Dick Curran of Puyallup, Washington displays the Cubic BOX
more area. You may have
kite he made without sewing. The Orcon AN-36 sail material
to stitch a single line to
was dyed in four colors by Georgean M. Curran, Dick's wife.
eliminate peel or creep
and secure the seam.
and hems but high-temperatureironing on
high-stress places, such as leading edges and
line attachment points.
~ p p i i ~bf
u estraight-linepieces is not a probRipstop nylon reacts to ironing more lem. But at first glance curved applique with
than polyester. This may cause more irreg- adhesives might seem a hassle. The paper
GUIDELINE @
ularities next to seams and hems. Nylon backing is too stiff to steer around curves.
tends to wrinkle more than polyester because
I have not discovered an ideal solution
As mentioned previously, ironing your it holds more moisture than polyester. for this but I have developed three ways
seams makes the adhesive "wet out" the rip- Ironing therefore drives off more moisture that work. Each involves secondary steps
stop mechanically and chemically and from nylon, making it change shape.
in the process and each has its advantages
strengthens the bond. It's best touse a buffer
and disadvantages.
material, such as stiff butcher paper or Mylar A Tip for Kiters Who Sew
One way, you can replace the stiff paper
drafting film, between the iron and the fab- Adhesives can augment 1
1 with a silicone-treated flexible double-knit
ric to smooth out the seams and keep the your sewingwhen you're
cloth backing. Another way, you can place
iron from formingwrinkles or puckers along using woven cloth. By
the adhesive on each side of a thin spunthe seam. Use a setting just below steam on bonding seams before
bonded material, creating a new, flexible
your iron. As an alternative, you can use a sewing, you fix dimendouble-sided tape. (Both these methods let
heat lamp or hair dryer followed by a roller sions and positions of
you handle the adhesive without the stiff
or burnishing tool for making the adhe- pattern pieces as the
paper backing.) A third way, for the 926
sive conform to the surface and wet the material moves through
adhesive, you can apply it to the ripstop
cloth.
the sewing machine.
with 3M's 752 ATG applicator gun, using the
Fig. 4. stitched
Ironing sometimes puckers the edges of Given that the bonded
adapter kit for %"-wideadhesive.
seam augmented
bonded seams as you dry out the ripstop. You seams are strong enough
The first two methods are only practical
with adhesive
can minimize this by ironing only the bond- with adhesive alone, a
for small areas or if you make only one or
ed area with a temperature-controlled sol- single stitched line is allyou'll need. You can two kites a year because of the time required
dering iron with a flat, smooth tip. The idea do simple overlaps and they will fray less. to prepare the adhesive. The third method
here is to heat only the cloth contacting Adhesives can be used to cut down your is faster and somewhat less labor-intensive
the adhesive. If you don't need the maxi- sewing time. And remember that 9460PC but involves a cash outlay of nearly $50.The
mum strength but just want to get a little will not gum up your needle.
how-to's for these methods are complicatmore adhesion and less puckering, you can
ed for this article,but are available free to subiron at a low temperature setting. For exam- Reinforcements
scribers on request. (Please send us a selfple, on a small or light-windkite, you might Of course you'll need to reinforce your bond- addressed stamped envelope.)
use low-temperature ironing on sail seams ed stress points just as with sewn kites. You
can adhere pieces of heavy Dacron polyester Piecing Sails
to comers and other areas under stress with In addition to applique, Sam Huston of the
*See "My Family of Custom Kite Fittings" by Bobby Stanfield, Kite Lines, Fall 1994.
9460PC tape. When bonding large rein- Pierce County Kitefliers has had great sucu
Use Heatto BondYour Seams
A
I
q2
/ KITE LINES / WINTER-SPRING 199=
cess bonding ripstop polyester into yard
goods. Sam pieced the material together,
butt-joining shapes and colors under strips
of black cloth. This creates a very pleasing
stained-glass effect. He then cuts and sews
the sail using traditional techniques.
A Challenge
This article is only a start. I don't imply
bonding is new or that I've got all the
answers. But I do say it offers good alternatives to the sewing machine.
I can't give you complete step-by-step
cook-book methods yet because the recipes
are still being worked out and it will be you,
the kiting community who will do much of
this. I hope to report the future news but
meantime I trust this article will give you
enough confidence to get started.
I'm willing to share information and discuss problems if need be. Contact me at
206-927-8779.
Author's note: I would like to thank Sam
Huston and David Lord of the Pierce
County Kitefliers Association, Washington
state, for feedback on their experiences
using adhesives in kitemaking. I also thank
STAC Inc. of Auburn, Washington, for their
time spent providing the 3M technical
information.
Editors Note: In support of this article, Kite
Lines has persuaded a few kite retailers to
carry the 3M 9460PC tape and possibly
the applicator gun. The retailers are:
Gasworks Park Kite Shop, Seattle,
Washington
Hang-em High Fabrics, Richmond,
Virginia
The Kite Studio, Wescosville,
Pennsylvania.
We expect other kite suppliers to jump
in as the word gets out. Check with your
favorite kite shop or mail order source.
Local 3M distributors, such as R. S. Hughes,
also sell the adhesives and guns.
PRISM DESIGNS INC. 2222 N. PACIFIC SEATTLE WA 98103 U.S.A.
-PHONE:
(206)547-1100
FAX: (206)547-1200-
RICHARD NORMAN (DICK) CURKAN made
bonded kites in the mid- to late 1940s, but the
adhesive was flour and water, the sail was newspaper hemmed with cotton string and the spars
were split bamboo. Forty-five years later, after
some schooling, an army tour and 35 years of
helping build airplanes (yes, bonding airplanes
together), he applied his knowledge to kiternaking. And yes, he does not know how to sew.
R E T A I L
C A T A L u t i
A V A I L A B L E
II
NEW BUGGY MODECS...
ACnVE CLUBS... MORE EVENTS THAN EVER...
ounded May 1994, the Association
Franpise de Char a Cerf-Volant (AF2C)
is the first and only association dedicated solely to kite buggying in France.
And now its stature is confirmed: in
February 1995 the AF2C entered into an
agreement with the French Land Yachting
Federation that gives Class 8 affiliation to
kitepowered carts. This is major recognition
for kite buggies and brings them access and
insurance on all designated land yacht sites.
With this federal license, the AF2C should
draw many new members.
At least seven important buggy gatherings
were held in France in 1994, including the
second Quend-Mage meeting
F
last November by Michel Gressier. Fiftythree buggiers and 64 buggies showed up.
At least five new buggy prototypes were
recently unveiled and marketed by various
French manufacturers. Although one of
them was so badly designed that it will surely never find a buyer, the others are much
better. They share a common quality: wellfinished, sturdy and innovative construction.
Contrary to many other buggies inspired
by the Peter Lynn original design, all these
models have rigid molded seats-as
opposed to net seats. These buggies are
not designed for freestyle exercises such
as the "wheelies" and spins performed by
acrobats on lighter models. Yet they may
offer better comfort for long rides and good
protection against water spills when ;ding
on wet sand beaches.
34 1KITE LINES I WINTER-SPRING 1995
e%I !?
Air Trak
This buggy designed and
distributed by Michel
Gressier introduces a new
structural concept: the
frame consists of a single
stainless steel square
beam. The rear axle, a
special fiberglass and
carbon tubing, is purposely made flexible
enough to act as a
shock-absorber.
The seat is fully
adjustable but is not spe
signed for sideways sitting and offers only
little lateral support. But side straps are
proposed as options and will prevent
Tho Dunny O u r a v n
the pilot from being pulled off on the The great originality of this buggy by Midi
side. The standard Air Trak is fittedwith Bleu is that its modular frame can very easelegant molded aluminum wheels and ily be lengthened with additional seat kits to
accommodate up to three passengers in line
fiberglass front wheel mudguard.
This buggy is entirely dismount- .(a five-seater, with reinforced frame is also
able, the main parts being securely marketed). Each passenger may of course
held by safety connectors, like those pilot his or her own kite provided everybody
on hang gliders. Prices range from agrees to go in the same direction!
The frame is all welded aluminum (sea
3,200 francs (basicversion) to 6,500 francs.
water resistant) except for the front wheel
fork, with adjustable footrests, which is
0 The N&w Zeph f
One of the problems &th rigid seats is that stainless steel. The molded polyester seat
they may not suit wide bottoms. Eric has recently been made wider to allow the
Nicolas, who successfully launched his rider to sit slightly sideways. Comfort, safeZeph 1buggy two years ago, now offers a ty, speed and compactibilityfor transport are
second version with a wider seat that is its assets. In its bag it measm 24"x 28"x 12".
Slanted rear wheels and a mudguard that fits
padded on the sides.
The originality of the Zeph is its molded to the front end are available. Prices, dependfiberglass and resin body frame, made as a ing on wheels, are 3,400 to 4,500 francs.
single piece incorporating both the front
wheel mudguard and the driver's seat. It
makes a very strong, impact-resistant structure while still allowing enough twist to
react on bumpy grounds. Yet, because only
the width-adjustablerear axle is collapsible,
bull< and shape will be a major drawback for
city dwellers lacking storage space at home
and a roof rack fortransport. The Zeph 1
sells for 3,680 francs.
1
The Kite Bug
This most interestingprototype,designed by
Jean-Philippe Krischer, a famous land yacht
designer and racer, exated all the buggy experts after it was shown for the first time at
the Paris "Salon Nautique" last December.
With its striking "biodesign" style and a
glossy red finish, it looks as classy in its
realm as a Ferran' or a Porsche.
The molded polyester seat, though deep
and comfortable, still allows the pilot to
pivot sideways, providing an excellent rest
for the back in any position. Thebottom of
the seat-with a small opening to drain
water-is only four inchesabove the epund
ta keep a very low center of gravity.
Another innovation is the front offset
direction system, derived from land yacht
design, which keeps the wheel very slanted
when turning, This provides better grip and
stability without loss of maneuverability.
For transport, the 45-pound Kite Bug
can be dismantled in a matter of seconds
thanks to the clip system that also allows
immediate adjusting of the rear axle width
and of the telescopic front tube.
When Krischa saw his first kite
buggyhewasc0nfUsedbyqrits"hame
made" appearance.As a designer d
three-wheeled machines powered
by wind, and after seeingthe p w ing enthusiasm for kite buggyjng
in France, he thought he should
have a try at designingsuch a kite
cart. Although he has no experience in kiteflying and didn't test
the buggy himself,this&t splendid prototype confirms
his talents as an innovative designer. The experia c e and modern faciliies of his £inn,Seagull,
assure reliable manufacture.The Kite Bug sells
for 3,900 francs.
-Article &Photog*
byPierreFabre
!NINTER-SPRING 1995 / KITE LINES / 35
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Article and Photographs by Simon Freidin
he theme for the prix
de concours at the 8th
biennial Dieppe festival was "the sea, the
ocean,"-but a more appropriate theme might have
been "the tidal wave, the
tempest." A huge weather
depression, appearing on
satellite photos as a whirlpool of solid cloud,
slowly moved in from the English Channel
and across the European coast during the
first seven days of the festival.
Yet, Dieppe weathered the storm and
emerged the grand festival it has always
I
.
~.
\
< - , . . , , . s
'7
Above right, a sky full of ocean creatures:
anemones, urchins and octopuses
by Willi Koch of Germany.
Above, miniature Codys displayed in a
street window in Dieppe.
..
'
.
'
#
,
,P
been. Dieppe stands alone as a professionally organized, art-oriented kite festival,
where one's passion for kites can truly be put
on display. It retained its unique features:
two weekends with an intervening week
devoted to kite activities; a unique mix of
representatives from all over the world (26
countries this year); and a town which
wholeheartedly supports the festival.
I last attended Dieppe four years ago,
and I had been fascinated to discover a
whole new world of European kitemakers.
This time I felt I was with a family of friends,
many of whom are now regulars at major
kite festivals around the world.
Above, a bird of prey with swordfish in its claws, from Thailand.
Right, Pierre Fabre's large Nuclear Mackerel, the top prize winner.
ing across the crowds milling through the
with the wind-not to fight it!"
7& 7 ~ i l Kbdk
q
Surprisingly, the poor weather did not village and seeing multiple "Peter Lynns."
When I asked Max Gaillard, the festival
convener, what he considered the high- dampen the spectators' enthusiasm. Even in
KlfO V i Q Q w
light of the event, he jokingly replied that the cold and wet, an appreciable crowd sur- A
it had been Thursday, when gale force rounded the demonstrationfields and wan- I noticed that the layout of the kite village
winds had forced the closure of the festival dered through the "kite village." This tent this year allowed for a better flow of pedesvillage. This led to a convoy of buses being
brought in to act as a windbreak, to prevent the tent village from being blown
away. B U ~he tempered his humor by
observing that the real highlight had been
on the Saturday of the final weekend. The
storm had broken and the sky was suddenly alight with kites.
4hantel Barret
In spite of the high winds and frequent
showers, the kitefliers accomplished a thorough show. Not surprisingly, the profes- city, complete with bars and kite shops, trian traffic. Four years ago it was laid out as
sional kitemakers had kites most adaptable houses each country in its own tent. The a square, which led to a crush of people
tents display kites repre- and made it difficult for kitefliers to get to
to the gales. Pierre Fabre,
sentative of the invited their kites and carry them to the display
Andre Cassagnes, Michel
kitemakers and many run fields. This year, the flow of public and kiteGressier with his Art pour
workshops, sell badges or fliers did not clash. The village was set up on
mon Ciel artists group
publications, display pho- either side of the roadway that leads from
(France), George Peters
tographs and demonswate the hotels to the sea front. The village was
(US), Michael Alvares (Amthe kitemaking typical of flanked on either side by the wide fields
tralia) and Peter Lynn
used for kiteflying, fields saved from develtheir countries.
(New Zealand) were
Among the stranger opment by Napoleon Bonaparte's wife in the
notable performers during
things on sale were the 18th century. And there were heated(!)conthe festival. Their kites m"Peter Lynn" green can- tainers for kite storage and drying.
ated a central focus to the
The roadway was transformed into a
vas hats going well at the
display.
mall,
easily serving the large crowds purNew
Zealand
tent.
The
But for some
the AndrC Cassagnes' ring kite with a
hats are Peter's trademark, chasing from the kite shops on one side of
winds were
much. As suspended interior surface.
when he is not wearing a the roadway, or wandering down alleyways
Chantel Barret of Paris
.
commented to me in typically French helmet for buggying or kite-sailing.This led of tents which led off to the other side of the
fashion, "One flies kites to make love to the disconcerting phenomenon of look- roadway. The road was blocked on the city
"One flies kites to make LOVE with
the wind-not to FIGHT it!"
KITES FROM THE FAR EAST
end by a large kite-inspired sculpture by Nescaf6, which brought fliers from the cof- (Northern Thailand) but without the intriPierre Fabre which was commissioned by the fee-growing countries of Colombia, Brazil cate paper carving for which the current-day
Malaysian wau is well known. Four 200city of Dieppe. Fabre designed a wind-driv- and Guatemala.
foot papyrus tails gave the kites stable peren centerpiece surroundedby a semicircle of
formance in strong winds, and once
30 banners, and containing the distinctive F W - 7 b &
design elements he uses in his kites. Other At this year's Dieppe, several countries were launched they stayed at high altitude all
day, barely shifting position. A rotating
sculptures also added to the festivities: represented for the first timc '- ---"--I-Veronique and Michel Gressier designed a set Martinique, Vietnam
of skulls and hummers which throbbed and Guatemala.
electrically in the strong winds, and a handMartinique's small
crafted aeolian harp was installed adjacent paper and bamboo
hexagonal kites are
to the stand overlooking the fields.
The festival had four main fields: a flown all over the
demonstration field for national exhibi- island on Ascension
tions, rokkaku battles, fighter kite demon- Day. A number of kites
strations and the like; a field for kites enter- on display in the
ing the prix de contours; a stunter field; and Martinique tent were
a field for tres gros cerfs-volants and for bug- made from single
gying. Peter Lynn, Dominique Scholtes, leaves, described by
Clyde Cook and James White had this field DesirCe Chapin, the
to themselves for much of the festival. Martinique represenAmong their menagerie: two @gu puffer tative, as a "poor man's
fish; an octopus; a platypus; a gecko; a dol- kite." Martinique has
phin; and a i e w kite still under develop- had a revival of kitement called a trilobite, unique because it has flying in the last four
no internal ribs.
years. Previously, kiteDuring the weekdays of the festival, work- flying in Martinique
shops were held in the kite village and at had been a rarity.
schools in the surrounding area. For the
From Cambodia
benefit of the attending fliers, workshops in came paper and bamkitemaking often followed the evening boo kites which
meals. Kitefliers made two excursions to appeared to be part
demonstratefor the employees of two of the wau (kite in Malaysian)
sponsors: EDF (Electricit6 de France) and and part Hong Song Above, Pierre Marzin holds aloft his award-winning crayfish kite.
I
I
Left, a delta showers the crowd with fireworks at the night
fly.
.
Above, the Red Baron by Thijo van Beek of Holland.
Below, Martinlque's display tent with leaf, paper and bamboo kites.
hummer made of four-foot of aurotaen reed
had wax balls at each end, and about a foot
of string. Suspended on the strings, the
hummer spun rapidly, resonating in a range
of tones. The kite had a two-leg bridle.
From Vietnam came kites of silk and
bamboo in the Chinese tradition. One kite
represented two doves holding aloft the
Eiffel Tower, which the Vietnamese explained was a symbol of peace between
France and Vietnam. In marked contrast, a
realistic three-dimensional jet plane kite
was launched. Like its Cambodian counterpart, it sat stably at high altitude.
by flying on Kevlar.
As soon as the organizers realized it, they
swiftly halted the battle. For a few minutes
there was confusion, then silence. In the
meantime my Simon's Samurai kite disappeared over the Dieppe skyline. It was later
returned, though with serious rips in its skin.
One of the poignant moments at the
festival was during the closing ceremony
when Max Gaillard asked for a moment's
silence for Peter Malinski, a kiteflier he
believed epitomized the Dieppe spirit. We all
mourned Peter's passing.
?As F m o k s NieAf Fey
The night fly at Dieppe has long been
renowned for its innovative and spectacular
Kite fighting was a major feature of the fes- display. This year's was no exception.
Work started early on the final Saturday,
tival, given impetus by the hard work of
the Manjha Club International, the brain- with the construction of a stage (for a live
child of Frenchmen Ludovic Petit and Philippe vocal and percussion band) and the rigging
Gallot. They organized demonstrations of of floodlights and spotlights around the
Indian, Korean and Thai kite fighting, fol- whole periphery of the kiteflying field. Before
lowed by a rokkaku
the fly was a dinner
for all the kitefliers
battle of 60 individuals flying kites less
at a nearby gymnasithan six feet tall
um. The surprise at
(most were about
dinner this year was
three feet). It was rethat Morihiro Takeda
markable to see so
of Japan was celebrating his 50th
many small rokkakus
launched sirnultanebirthday. He received
ously and in fullfight
one of the largest
For me the low
toasts probably ever
Of the
made to any kiteflier
A regular of Dieppe, the energetic Shakib
by
kitefliers.
during the Gunn of Singapore with friend.
team rokkaku battle
At the night fly, I
on the final Sunday afternoon. After fight- spent much of the time lying on my back
ing my way to being one of the last kites in looking skyward. The image of ghostly kites
the sky, I was cut down by a kiteflier who rising from the darkened field to be bril-
3h fk&& Fig&
liantly illuminated by the multitude of lights
cutting into the blackness was totally exhilarating. This is one situation where all-white
kites have dramatic impact; many multicolored works which are so much a part of
contemporary kitemaking have too much
detail to come alive to the same extent.
From the side of the field, the image was
truly surreal-white lines and white kites
glowing spectacularly in the moonlit sky.
Stunter-mounted fireworks added vitality
to the image and a final fireworks frenzy
brought the fly to a dramatic close.
Dieppe provides g ~ l ~ n oprizes
u s for its prix
de contours: trips to kite festivals in Canada,
Thailand, Indonesia and Italy. This year the
prizes went exclusively to French kitefliers,
which most of the foreign guests considered
a fitting way to promote French kiteflying.
Then again, most of the foreign guests travel as often as they want. The organizers
expressed some disappointment that none
of the prizes were won by the foreign guests.
Aim6 Barsalou of Canada commented
that for him, the communal mealtimes were
a highlight. They gave him the opportunity to spend time with other kitefliers. He said
that at many other festivals the kitefliers
only meet on the flying field, and then are
usually too busy with their kites to have
more than a short conversation. But at
night, in the meal hall, there was plenty of
time to share ideas and experiences. This
sense of community, as much as anything,
is the great hallmark and attraction of
Dieppe.
Q
From Germany, a rlng kite of neon colors is
launched by a group of European fliers.
hrough the years since the publication of my book, The Art of the
Japanese Kite, I have traveled with
my collection of Asian kites, lecturing and installing exhibitions in galleries and
museums around the world. Wherever I and the
T
"How old were you and your brother when
you made these kites?" I asked.
"I was nine, he was ten," she replied. "It was
common then for children around the age of 10
years and older to n&&&&$r own kites where
I gre
"We went to a hot springs," she hurried on
in her account, "and he overcame his wounds."
At this point, I began to feel very awkward
with my brashness, but I asked some more
questions about her life in America. I learned
, one boy nine and
I
"
nboo
Unlike in the United States where it is commlAfor children to make their own kites, in Japan
kitemaking is the work of a professional artist,
someone following in the footsteps of a fatherperhaps a grandfather or two.
"Which kite did you make?" I asked.
"The yakko dako," she replied. "My brother and I made them."
"Is that so?" I said, coming down off the ladder.
"Yes, we used a candle to bend the bamboo.
I thought, how she would respond.
"I would teach my son how to make the
yakko dako." She said this with a certainty that
gave me hope that it would certainly happen.
to acquire bamboo, was Masako Odani.
A hundred questions came to my mind
traditional kitemakers there in Hiroshima when
she was growing up? Were there kites and
kitemakers before the fateful A-bomb blast? I did
not have the courage to continue exercising my
prerogatives as an American kite enthusiast.
But the legs are too sho
exhibiting. We made them
newspaper. The longer leg
ter.
"That would be so," I said. The Matsutaro
mine, would have to extend this area of
Japanese kite scholarship.
For me, in my mind at least, Masako Odani
was then and is now:
by-legged footman or servant--gives up some
of its ability to withstand heavy winds in order
to bow deeply at the waist like a properly
It was time for me to learn more about
Japanese kites.
firs
when I lived in Japan.
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He's just got the
TOUCH
Article by Steve McKerrow
Photographs by Debbie Rosen McKerrow
t' s Saturday morning in Wildwood, New figure takes the flying handles and
Jersey and the wind is screeching down leans back against the kite's pull.
the beach, spitting sand. A fierce north- For the next few minutes, Alex
easter has blown away scheduled flying Mason, of Savannah, Georgia carves
events of the final day of the American the kite across the wind.
Kitefliers Association annual gathering, and
only a few kites are up-a couple power Alex
parafoils towing irrepressiblebuggy riders on Barely four feet tall, with freckles
the hardpack above the surf wash and a and a Beaver Cleaver grin, Alex
triple stack of Flexifoils, rapidly pulling their holds the handles with confidence.
pilot in a series of leaps over the sand. He At each acceleration pass, his feet
looks like an astronaut negotiating the light leave the sand, and family friend, Mike
gravity of the moon.
Simmons, firmly clutches the back of the
A few hundred yards upwind, a fast, cus- boy's jacket to hold him in place.
tom stunter made by Frenchman Andrk
Later, at the evening awards dinner in the
Cassagnes roars through a series of loops Wildwood Convention Hall,Alex wiU disand ground passes.
cover he placed eighth among 15 competi"Look, they're going to let Alex try it," tors in the Intermediate Individual Ballet
says Tom Mason, watching from the board- event flown earlier thisweek. His parents will
walk with his wife, Susan.
also celebrate their second place finish in the
Down on the beach, an improbably small Masters Pairs Ballet.
The following week, the
Masons will be home to celebrate Alex's birthday-just
his seventh birthday!
"People just introduce us
as Alex's parents now," jokes
Tom Mason, 47, a printing
photographer in the Navy
Department of the U.S.
Department of Defense in
Savannah. "He's just got the
touch. He can fly any of 'em
that he touches, seems like."
"When we're driving, he
even practices in the car, sitting the back and holding
I
a
I
Above, Alex plays with a toy.
Left, a Mason family portrait,
with kites. From left:
Hillary, Tom and Alex.
his handles. Once, we even suspended his
Rev in the living room so he could practice,"
adds Susan Mason, 38, a data transcriber
for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Mason Family
Together, the Masons also run Savannah
Feathers, a banner company that supplies
colorful wind-blown signatures to such retail
outlets as The Kite Loft in Maryland and
Kitty Hawk Kites in North Carolina. They are
also founding members of the Kite
Association of Savannah (KAOS),direct the
Golden Isles (Georgia) Stunt Kite Championships and have been competing in pairs
events for four years on the Eastern League
circuit.
To round the family out, 10-year-old
daughter Hillary also flies stunt kites. In
fact, in the week before last October's AKA
event in Wildwood, she flew in her first
competition at the Outer Banks Stunt Kite
Championships in Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina.
"I learned right after Alex leamed, because
, beat you.' He's
Alex said, ' ~ i l a r I~can
younger than me, so I said, 'I can do that
too))))explains Hi]]ary,with big
dace.
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Far right, Alex
shows his stuff in
light breezes.
Right, Alex needs an
anchor (friend Mike
Simmons) when he's
flying in heavy winds.
clearly dominate the
family's life. Indeed, at
the Outer Banks and
AKA events, Tom's sister, Kate Bourbonais,
traveled from her home
in El Cajon, California
to help support the
Masons' flying passion.
"I think our attachment to kiting now is
that it's such a familyoriented sport," says
Susan, a ~ a k n a n&ve.
h
To illustrate, she
recounts a day earlier in the busy AKA week
when Tom became concerned that Alex
had wandered away, out of sight.
"I said, 'Don't worry, Alex has 480 parents
here,'" Susan recalls with a laugh, adding, "I
attributehis ability to fly to all the other kitefliers. They don? treat Alex like a little kid
who's bothering them."
Natural Talent
Revolution, Skynasaur and
Dyna-Kites, which supply
kites and some support for his
flying. (Tom and-susan are
also sponsored by Skynasaur
and Dyna-Kites.)
But he's also every inch a
young boy, talking shyly, bantering with Hillary and asserting that, when he grows up,
for the Blue
hgreally wants to be a
Angels, the U.S. Navy precision flying
squadron.
On behalf of the fledgling Kite Association
of Savannah, the Masons traveled to
Tom says that kiters who have not seen
Seaside, Oregon to see how the inaugural
Alex before don't really believe he can fly.
stunt kite Worlds were being organized.
Oh, but can Alex fly. Posing for pictures
"I watched and thought, I can fly as good
in a wind-shelteredcourtyard of Wildwood's Family Ties
Rio Motel, the &foot-l,54-poundkid attach- Tom says he was not particularly enamored as they can fly," recalls Susan.
Thus, Windswept was born, Tom and
es 9-foot lines to his pink and blue Revolu- of kites as a child himself. He fell for the sport
tion I1 quad-liner and maneuvers it deftly a short time after falling for Susan, whom he Susan's competitive duo that last fall combetween trees. An hour later, he joins several met when they both worked for the Corps pleted their fourth season in Pairs Ballet.
They were Eastern League Champions in
adult fliers to soar the kite-it's bigger than of Engineers in Savannah.
In fact, the newlyweds were on their F,xpenenced Pairs in 1991, second in Masters
he is tall-from floor to ceiling inside the
honeymoon 13 years ago in Tom's home- Pairs in 1992, first in that category in 1993
convention hall.
town
of San Diego when they saw kiters and second in 1994.
Some who have seen him fly hesitate to
The Masons express strong gratitude for
flying
stacks of two-line stunters. Intrigued,
try to tell him much-such as Ron Reich.
The author of the stunt kite primer Kite Tom bought a triple Trlby array when they their development to Ron Reich.
"When we got started, he choreographed
Precision and captain of the legendary Flight returned home.
"I actually took 'em to the beach and our first routine to the theme from Terms of
Squadron that began as the Top of the Line
kite team, he choreographs flying patterns tried to fly, and I literally crashed them onto Endearment," recalls Tom. "He sent us 20
a person walking along," recalls Tom. pages of instructions and graphs.. .and since
for Alex's parents. But not for Alex.
"He has a gift for interpretation on his Disturbed by the experience (fortunately, has choreographed two more routines to
own, and I would not want to taint that with the surprised pedestrian was unhurt), he the song "Hernando's Hideaway" and the
an*
of my own. He's able to improvise, put the kites away until some kids making theme from Exodus."
Tom and Susan say they do not plan to
and have the kite do what he interprets a family visit discovered them in a closet and
push Alex farther than he wants to go. And
from the music.. .to captw the feehg of it," urged him to demonstrate.
Tom's initial enthusiasm lay in flying Susan notes both children are honor stusays Ron. "I think he was five years old
when I first saw him fly, and he had a mas- large trains working up to five Flexifoils, to dents, and that Alex takes piano lessons,
see how many he could hold. No prob- wants a guitar (Hillary plays the flute) and
tery of the kite I had never seen before."
loves trains-as in locomotives and rolling
Alex's parents say he was four when he lem-Tom is a large man.
Throughout his early kiting, however, and stock, not kites.
picked up his father's Quadrifoil and flew for
But right now, Alex flies.
as their children arrived, Susan did not fly at
the first time.
Tom
says, "He stays out there all day
a
l
l
.
But
a
visit
to
the
&st
World
Cup
Stunt
Kite
"I just thought I could fly to music,"
and we have to bring him in at night." 9
Alex recalls. He now has sponsorships from Championships in 1990 changed that.
Making your best picks
...
w
th very few exceptions, kitemakers
don't design new kites on a completely blank page. They bring to the task their
experience, especially how they've used
their sail and frame materials before. Learning how a range of spars will work takes
time and involves making many kites. To
speed this process, I measured spars to help
evaluate those we're thinking of using.
You should consider several factors when
selecting a spar for a particular kite design,
but the three most important factors are:
weight, strength and stiffness (uniform radial
stiffness).
For weight, any kite benefits from having
the lightest frame possible, as long as it
withstands flying stresses.
Strength is a measure of how much stress
a spar can withstand before it fails outright.
Stiffness is how the spar behaves under
load. To be technically accurate, the concept
I am addressing as "stiffness" is actually
flexibility, but thinking about a spar in terms
of its stiffness makes things easier to understand for us kitemakers.
We can easily measure weight and
strength with ordinary tools. However, precisely measuring strength involves breaking
many sample spars under highly controlled
conditions. Like others who have made
prior efforts of this sort, I did not take on
that aspect of the project. (Maybe this article will inspire a Kite Lines reader to carry out
that part of the research.)
How I Measured Spars
BY Michael Graves
missing spars from shops or individuals. I
also included a few spars that are no longer
available, so you can find spars with similar
properties if you need to repair or refit an
older kite.
I asked each spar manufacturerto provide
ten samples per type so I'd have an adequate sample. I weighed each batch of samples on an electronic scale and measured for
length.
I measured each spar's static deflection
with standard loads on a custom-built test
bench. The test bench supported each spar
at two points 24" apart, and had an adjustable rule for measuring deflection in the
middle of the span. I then hung a weight in
the middle of this 24" span to get a deflection reading, and recorded the spar's deflection in millimeters.
Because of the wide variety of spars tested, I couldn't use a single test load. To be
valid, each spar had to bend an amount
that seemed likely for a real kite design. I figured each spar should be deflected at least
15mm to get an idea of its stiffness. To meet
this criteria, I used a set of test loads varying
between l000g and 2000g. I chose which
standard weight to apply and then measured the different deflections.
I recorded all measurements on a computer spreadsheet. The spreadsheet averaged the deflection measurements for each
type of spar. I then calculated deflection per
lOOg of load, relative to a K-75 fiberglass
spar. Thus the stiffness numbers presented
are directly comparable for all spars listed.
I approached as many manufacturers of
spars as I could find and asked them to pro- PickingA Reference
vide a small quantity of samples for testing. You might say a K-75 fiberglass spar isn't an
Most manufacturers responded enthusias- appropriate standard because fiberglasstically. Whenever possible, I later gathered framed kites no longer dominate the mar48 / KITE LINES I WINTER-SPRING1995
ketplace. This may be true, but remember
that the numbers given for stiffness are relative. You can choose whatever spar you
like as a reference. The values in the RS column are directly comparable to each other.
This way, you can create several tables for
comparing spars against a reference spar
whose properties you know. For example,
you can use Advantage 25012 as your reference spar when considering spars for an
ultralight kite design.
Tapered Spars:
A Special Case
Several manufacturers now make tapered
carbon spars for kites. Unlike parallel-walled
spars, tapered spars aren't uniformly stiff
along their length. To precisely measure
swess, you must test at a number of points
along the spar, then plot these as a curve on
a graph. Similar measurements of parallelwalled spars generally give a near straightline graph.
The sheer number of spars tested forced
me to abandon the idea of plotting the stiffness of every spar, so I tested them all with
the same simple deflection test. In the case
of the tapered spars, this stiffness number
doesn't comprehensively reflect the properties of the spar, but it's better than having
no measurement at all.
Some kitemakers debate the virtues of
tapered spars. The debate centers on precisely
defining load patterns in kite frames, and determining if the current crop of tapered spars
addresses these load patterns best. To date,
there is no dehitive answer to this question.
When I look around at major stunt kite
competitions, I see that both types of spars
are popular in high-performance kites.
Other industries have shown that tapered
rods can be precisely engineered to be strong
where needed, with less material. This makes
for low overall weight. Precisely winding
tapered rods (like fishing rods) to fit special
situations is costly; that's why custom fishing rods cost so much.
In practice, a tapered spar's small end,
while much less rigid than the large end,
resists impact and is durable, so you may
want this for areas such as wingtips, as long
as the reduced stiffness is acceptable.
All theory and debate aside, you can get
state-of-the-artspars with both parallel and
tapered spar geometry. This tells us that neither type is inherently superior to the other.
From a kitemaker's point of view, the
best results will arise from carefully considering which spar is best for each application.
WINTER-SPRING 1995 I KITE LINES I 49
. . . Continued
The Scale Factor
In the Spring 1992 issue of Stunt Kite Quarterly, David Lord introduced the "scale factor" in his article "Selecting Spars for a New
Kite Design." The scale factor is a simple
way to find the right spar when scaling up
or down based on an existing kite's design.
The following examples ar; David's own
descriptions for using the scale factor.
EXAMPLE1
To scale a Mte while m a i m t a b
ingaproporticmaUystiH&ame
...or to determine the scale of a larger or
smaller kite that exactly maintains the same
frame stiffness for any candidate spar:
It's crucial you have a reference. For your
reference you'll have to rely on your experience with the kite's lower and upper wind
range. For a light-wind-rangekite (i.e., 3-12
mph) my reference is a 64" leading edge
with Clearwater 250-2 spars. For this example let's see what size light-windkite we can
build with AFC 2300 spars.
We first look at the chart and find the relative stiffness value of the reference spar
Clearwater 250-2 (0.600)' then find the scale
factor for the AFC 2300 (0.995). These two
values give you the relationship between
the known and proposed leading-edge
lengths. That is, 0.995 / 0.6 = 1.658, so the
leading edge of our new kite would be 1.65
x 64", or 106".
EXAMPLE
2
To select spars for a m r t
windrange:
The relationship between wind speed change
and spar stiffness is:
RS2 = (v22/v12) RS1
where
RS1= relative stiffness of reference spar
RS2 = relative stiffness of spar for new
wind speed
V1= reference wind speed
V2 = new wind speed
Suppose you have a kite framed with AFC
1800 spars. You notice in flying this kite
that the frame distorts at the upper limit
of the wind speed you want to fly in.
First, measure this wind speed. Once I thank those manufacturers whoprovided samyou know the wind speed, you have a good ples. Without their cooperation this reportwould
reference, namely the AFC 1800 spar stiff- not have beenpossible. Big thanks also to David
ness at the wind speed in which your kite Lord (Surnner, W m h i n w ) , S i m Salanne (Espoo,
was flying that day. For this example, let's Finland), and Glen Hayes (Nav Tripoli, Penngive the kite a 64" leading edge, and let the sylvania) for their support and assistance.
wind speed
you
measured be 8mph. From
,
this, let's figure the spar size we'i need to
move the kite's upper-wind speed up to
15mph.
RS2 = 1 ~ ' / 8 ~0.32,
)
therefore RS2 = 1.125
We consult the chart for a spar with a relative stiffness near to this figure. We find
several spars will do the job, including Avia
Sport's 2300 and RCF Ultra 6. This way you
can find which spars are suitable in terms of
stiffness. You can then further refine your
choice based on other factors, such as weight
or price.
Connectors & Fmkrgs
Many spar manufacturers now offer molded plastic or rubber fittings to fit their spars.
Such custom fittings make it easy for the
novice kitemaker to assemble a frame with
a professional degree of fit and finish. In
general, such custom fittings are quick to
install, fit well, and increase the overall
stiffness of the frame. Most custom fittings
are also lighter than connectors you'd
hand-cut from vinyl tubing.
When selecting custom fittings, look
for good fit and durable material. Some
manufacturers offering spars in various
sizes try to make fittings for more than
one size of spar. This works well if the fitting is somewhat elastic and fits both spar
sizes snugly. If the fitting isn't snug on the
smaller spar, the frame may come apart
during minor crashes. If the material is too
soft, frame tension or high winds may in
time tear it.
And
spamhgI..
Just as this research was nearing completion, several manufacturers introduced new
spars at the Kite Trade Association's annual
trade show. Progress marches on unabated,
presenting us with an increasingly wider
selection of spars to consider.
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==--I II--.I-II-I
'
. k n o w l e d g e is to be s h a r e d . ."
profile: ROGER MADDY
Read abu$$he
unpmmdented feet:
R.agerMaddy ffles
quad-linekM& a$one h
t
By Brian Clark
Photographs by Creda Axton
...
R
oger Maddy is a showman and
somethingof a kite shaman. For years,
the 40-year-old from Olympia, Washington
traveled the United States playing bluegrass
music for appreciative audiences.
He still does from time to time. But now
he also dazzles kite festival crowds, performing unprecedented feats by flying three
quad-line kites at the same time.
In his hands and from his body the three
kites dance and twirl like puppets on the
wind.
"There is, quite frankly, no one on this
earth who is doing what he's doing," says
Kathy Goodwind, who has run the Gasworks Park Kite Shop in Seattle for 15years.
Some kiters think no one else has managed
to get two to fly well at the same time.
Goodwind said. "Roger
had what I thought was
an impossible, harebrained idea. I thought he
was nuts, but I watched it
through the whole process and he made it work."
Maddy grew up flying
one-line kites. He remembers
always being
intrigued with wind and
weather.
But it wasn't until 1990
that he really got the kite
bug. It happened at Long
Beach, Washmgton, where
he bought his first dualline delta.
he was in Seattle at a seminar put
on by innovative stunt flier Lee
Sedgwick. Maddy was fascinated
with Sedgwick's ability to fly a
four-linekite with his fingers, like
Maddy, who lays carpet to pay
the bills and played with arts
and crafts as a kid, sgUred,"There
must be some way to come up
with handles to control the
kite."
Above, closeup of Maddy,s
total concentration is required with
12 control lines, 4 from each handle and
4 from the waist and chest.
Above
Maddy fliesthree kites-forming a stack Of a Rev On a Rev On
another Rev 2.
*
o he set to work. He made
the first handles from
PVC pipe, but they didn't work quite the
way he wanted. Then again, he didn't exact1~know what he ~~eeded.
"I'd done a little juggling, but I'd never
worked with puppets," he said.
It didn't hurt that his fingers could fly
over the frets of the mandolin, gutar, banjo,
fiddle and other instruments. "I guess that
dexterity had to help some," he said.
Maddy soon became what many people
might say was obsessed with kiting. He estimates he worked on his kites 30 hours a
week for the past three years. In real.iv,it was
his second job.
"Kiting is very addictive," he said. "My
wife and I had some serious talks about it all.
But I kept at it."
Maddy wasn't sure if he could fly three
quad-line kites at the same time. But he
was determined to try,and began by t a w
two-at-a-time.
"It was frustrating," he said. "I almost
gave up on those handles. Then I got it
with the right hand and that was a major
breakthrough."
He is right-handed though, and figuring out how to use the left handle was
much more difficult. But with more hours
+
he got that, too.
WINTER-SPRING 1 9 9 5 a I T E LINES / 53
"Doing the right and left kites at the
same time, however, was a disaster," he
said. "My brain just wouldn't cooperate. I
sort of had to retrain my brain."
That took hundreds and hundreds of
hours. He flew in the dark. He flew in the
rain. He even flew on rainy nights.
"My wife, Janice, as well as
other fliers, really thought I had
lost it," he said. But again he
persevered and figured it out.
T
combinations available.
So the next time you're
107 Chelsea Road
Hatboro, PA 19040
215-672-1470
PAT#4,771,970-3,893,641
hen he wanted to fly a
third four-line kite. With
both hands already busy flying two four-liners, how to get
the third one up? He experimented by attaching lines to
his knees, his feet and his chest
in dozens of combinations, but
had minimal success. For about
six months, he gave up the
chase and went to flying the
third kite as a dual-liner from
his hips, in combination with
the two four-liners with his
hands.
"I wasn't satisfied with that,"
he said. "With four lines, you can make
the kite change pitch and slow down. You
can make it act like a puppet." The two-liner
didn't give him enough control, he said. So
he returned to the idea of flying that third
four-line kite off his body.
"I'd wake up at 3 a.m. with an idea, but
it wouldn't work," he said. "It was tough. I
kept coming back to having two lines coming off my chest and another two off my
waist."
With lots of time, that finally worked.
"To do this, you have to have your legs
free. You need to be able to move around,"
he said.
"Then I found that if you bend forward
and the winds are right, all you have to do
is stand up tall to launch the kite."
Maddy remembers the moment.
"I was in Magnuson Park in Seattle on
Lake Washington. It was the summer of
'92 and I let out a big victory yell. People in
that park thought I was bonkers."
B
ut Maddy's hell had just begun. "I
found it impossible to control three
kites up in the air at the same time. It was
total chaos." The kites crashed, seemingly
out of control. They collided and ripped big
holes in each other.
But Maddy knew he was close.
Hundreds and hundreds of hours later,
he had yet another breakthrough. He knew
he was perhaps the only person on this
watery globe who had reached the level at
which he was kiting.
In 1993 he went to kite festivals. But
he didn't perform. And he certainly didn't
boast. He wasn't ready.
"It's sort of like being a juggler," he
mused. I didn't want to get out in front of
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Maddy forms fast-moving circular patterns
with Goodwinds Kites' stunters fitted with
70-foot-long quad lines.
an audience before I had all eight balls
going and I was doing it well."
Last summer, however, Maddy was wowing crowds at festivals around Washington
and in Lincoln City, Oregon. He was also
picking up sponsors who wanted him to fly
their kites.
"I don't really expect to make a dime off
of what I do," said Maddy. "I just love performing. I've always been an entertainer.
"Maybe I'll make a video, though I don't
know if I could teach others how to do
this, even with the gear I've developed and
1,500hours to train them."
But he hopes that his backers, which
include ~oodwindsKites in Seattle and
Revolution Enterprises in San Diego,
Wornia, will help send him to festivals in
Europe, Asia and Oceania.
"My goal is to get my expenses paid. To
be honest, I have no idea how this'll all
play out," he said.
One last note: Maddy promised his wife
that he'd slack off some when he got it all
figured out. So now, in a show of good
faith, he's cut flying his kites to just 20
hours a week.
I
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v
Photos taken at Long Beach and Westport,
Washington 1994.
- Made in U.SA
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--
Hi.. We are John and Becky of
BBCKY's Performance Kites and
our message is simple... If you
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Please remain loyal to them, if
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The Best in Products, Prices
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The Kite Lines Bookstore
SPECIAL PURCHASE!
sewing the kiter's reading needs b y mail
F IT'S ABOUT KITES, the Kite Lines
Bookstore probably has it-the common,
the rare, the foreign, the domestic, the
informative, the artistic, the good--and the
bad. W e carry nearly all the kite titles in
print, even ones that give us a lot of trouble to
obtain for you.
The Bookstore gives no endorsement to any
I
Make Mine Fly by Helen
Bushell. This 1988 edition is an excellent
collection of tips, techniques, and hints (gathered since 1977) for
beginners, experts,
groups or individuals.
Includes plans for the
famous patented Trefoil
Delta, plus several papel
kites. Softcover, 90 pp.,
$22.95
Bermuda Kites by Frank
Watlington. Plans for five island
kites, plus variations and hummers. Traditional methods and
materials (flour and water paste:
"a little cayenne pepper will
keep away the roaches"). Flying
tips, a little history. A charmer.
Softcover, 24 pp., $4.95
title, but we do guarantee your satisfaction
with our service. W e want you to feel like
you're in your local bookstore. Pick a book.
Look it over. If it's wrong for yoy you can put
it back on our shelf: No problem.
Kite books often go out of print without
warning. If you want any of these, we suggest
you snap them up now!
KITE-FOLDSZ g i
Lawrence Hargrave research by
David A. Craddock:
Ravensboume to Airborne reviews
work on aerodynamics, gliders and
kites, including notebook sketches of
equipment, concepts and designs. No
photos. Softcover, 37 pp., $24.95
Construction Drawings for a Selection
of Kites, companion volume, contains
detailed plan drawings for a dozen
Hargrave kites of moderate size.
Both books as package, $39.95.
Kite-Folds by Beth
Matthews. This improved edition has
plans for 12 small
kites, easily made
from a single sheet
of paper, $us the
"Skyvelope." Clear
instructions, lovely
color photos, addendum on kites in
teaching. Softcover,
36 pp., $14.95
t i u FII, ' I Kit?: The
Kite Bltiltier '5 Manual
by John Boxtcl.
Novcl plans; pleasing drawings, but
lacking dimensions.
Old-fashioned techniques. Softco\.er,
80 pp., $12.95
Arte de Fazer Pipas 2 (The Att of
Kitemaking 2) by Silvio Voce,
in Portuguese. How to make 10
non-Brazilian paper kites.
Arte de Fazer Pipas 1 gives plans
for 14 kites-half are Brazilian.
Kite Crazy (the book) by Carol Thomas. Accompanies the video. Plans
for fighters, dual- and quad-liners.
Sound writing, black-and-white
drawings. Softcover, 176 pp., $27.95
Kite Crazy (the video) by SOMA
Film & Video, Canada. Famous
kiters teach how to make and fly I-,
2- and Cline kites. Good clear
instructions and lovely footage,
VHS format, 102 min., $34.95
Special booklvideo package $59.95
Pictures for the Sky, by Paul Eubel
and Ikuko Matsumoto, in a new
English edition, revised from
Bilder fir den Himmel (Pictures for
the Sky). Incredibly beautiful fullpage'color
of kites made
for the traveling exhibition.
Includes the work of 100 international artists collaborating
with 36 Japanese kitemakers.
(no airmail shipping)
NEW! Kltzng to Record Altitudes
tells everyth~ngthat can go
wrong with altitude efforts.
Stunt Kite Basics covers safety,
social aspects, equipment and
maneuvers (32 in all). Emphasizes
ccess m competitions. Softcover,
1
Chinese Artistic Kites by Ha
Kuiming and Ha Yiqi. The
celebrated kites of the Ha
family of Beijing. History,
structure, decoration, flight.
Over 80 kites in richly printed color. Good English translation. Limited supplies. Softcover, 160 pp., $16.95
Mark Cottrell's books are homely and self-published,with plans
that may call for a magnifying glass-but they are also some of the
most honest, entertaining and useful in print:
Kite Aerial Photography. Three kite plans and a system to compare
trade-offs among features in a rig. Source lists.
Softcover, 44 pp., $10.95 :
Swept W i n g Stunt Kites. Analysis of stunt design elements; .
4 olans. Softcover. 43 oo.. $11.95 .
The Kite Store Book of Kites. 10 plaAs for original ~bttreiikitesplus :;
philosophy and a 5.25" disk for computer design.
Kites: A Practical Handbook by
Ron Moulton and Pat Lloyd.
Good information in slight
disorder. Excellent drawings of
25-plus kites. Fine sections on
sport kites and parachuting
teddy bears. Outdated
appendixes; some color photos.
-***'-'-.
.-.m
---
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Go fiLY A Km
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&%-
Fishing for
Angels: The
Magic ofKites by
David Evans.
A very pretty,
colorful book.
Great lore and
tips (just avoid
the three kite
plans).
Softcover,
63 pp., $14.95
NEW! A Beginner's Guide to Flying Indian Fighter
Kites by Shirley Turpin. A well-compressed
compendium of good advice gleaned from
Stafford Wallace, British flier of Indian fighters. Discusses basic principles of fighter flying,
line selection and handling, tuning, bridling,
launching, changing direction, care, repairs;
problem-solving Simple but adequate blackand-white drawings. Softcover, 18 pp., $3.95
Box Kites Making and Flying
by Dr. Bill Cochrane. Plans for 17
types of box kites, from basic
designs to Hargrave, Conyne and
tetrahedral plus three Cody styles.
A little history and
aerodynamics but out-of-date
building methods. Color photos
in attractive iayout.
Scanty appendixes.
Hardcover, 96 pp., $34.95
,
!
WMI'ER-SPRIh'G 1995 1 KITE LINES / 57
The Kite Lines Bookstore . . . Continued
eb2b
Leistungsstarke Lenkdrachen zum Nachbauen (Hgh
Performance Stunt Kites to Make) by Peter Rieleit,
in German. Plans for 12 original dual-liners (six
deltas, three foils and three figure kites, including Superfly,banana, pteranodon). A stimulating, motivating, creative work. Includes fine
charts plus tips on materials, sewing, knots and
flying. Softcover, 96 pp., plus full-size fold-out
airfoil pattern, $22.95
Cerfs-Volants: b la Recherche du
Blar by Gerard Clement, in
Kite Cwkety by
Don Dunford.
Plans for four kites,
with building
methods. Includes
Dunford's idiosyncratic aerodynamics. Softcover,
47 pp., $495
French. A feast for the eyes (not
the mind), this is a big, beautifully designed collection of underidentified color photographs.
Some history, n o plans. Dreadful
bibliography. Hardcover, 117 pp.,
$57.95 (no airmail shipping)
Asiastische Drachen
(Asian Kites) by Franz
Arz, in German.
Lovely and colorful
book containing 22
kite plans, including
5 fighters. Instruc-
Books by Werner Backes, in Geman, compact and
sampler, including the Cloud Seeker, Cody,
tetrahedral, rhombus and multicell boxes,
parafoil, Roloplan and rokkaku. Also directions for trams, reels, knots and aenal photography. Softcover, 128 pp., $18.95
Neue drachen zum Nachbauen (New Kites to
Replicate). Plans for 20 kites from available
materials plus accessones. Appropriate for
workshops. Softcover, 128 pp., $7.95
Drachen mit Geschichte (Kites
with History) by Walter Diem
and Werner Schmidt, in
German. Extensively researched, faithfully reproduced models from our rich
kiting history. Brogden,
Gomes, Grund, Hargrave,
Kuznetzov, Lamson, Lecornu,
Sauls, others. Detailed plan
drawings and wonderful
historic photos. Hardcover,
,
96 pp., $24.95
Kite books by Wolfgang Schimmelpfennig, in German,
contain choice building plans, techniques and flying tips
in a clear and colorful format:
Neue Lenkdrachen und Einleiner bauen und Piegen (New Stunt Kites and
One-Liners to Make and Fly). Includes 6 stunters (one is a quad-liner)
and 3 single-liners. Brief design theory. Softcover, 80 pp., $19.95
Lenkdracken bauen und f7iegen (Making and Flying Stunt Kites).
Contains 8 dual-liners (4 diamonds, 3 deltas and a foil), good information on knots and materials. Softcover, 64 pp., $19.95
Phantastiscke Drachenwelt: Die Festivals, Die Drachenbauer, Die Modelle
(Fantastic Kiteworld: The Festivals, The Kitemakers, The Models). A
handsome coffee-table book of real substance. Insert has traceable
plans for 4 kites. Hardcover, 128 pp., $39.95 (no airmail shipping)
ITALY: . .
Skywork I1 Experience by
Christine Schertel, in Geman.
New, different volume. Plans for
12 original, tested kite designs
in good variety: nine stunters
and three cellular kites, including a Hargrave, Cody and the
"Revolver." Attractive paintings
instead of photographs.
Tezukun' Omoshiro Dako
N p m o n (A Primer of Interesting Handmade Kites) by Eiji
Ohashi, in Japanese. Both
traditional Asian and modern kites are among these
easy-to-makefigure and box
kites as well as Ohashi's
famous arch train. Color
photos, drawings, full details.
Softcover, 100 pp., $?7 O5
Kleine Papieren Vliegers
(Small Paper Kites) by Harm
van Veen, in Dutch. A very
original, colorful little book
with clear and detailed
plans for 10 artful miniatures plus a tiny reel.
Complete techniques, even
splitting bamboo. Softcover,
32 pp., $7.95
Aquiloni (Kites) by Guido
Accascina, in Italian. A mini
encyclopedia, with kites in
"family" groupings. Includes
theory, techniques, sources,
history, plans. Good printing
including some color. Latest
edition in standard pocketbook format. Softcover,
256 pp., now $16.95
Aquiloni Acrobatid by
Cristina Sanvito and
Giancarlo Galli, in Italian.
The first Italian stunt kite
book covers the basics
and more. Graphics and
drawings are neat and
clear. Gives a brief history, safety tips, basic-to-advanced
techniaues and maneuvers vlus a book list and valuable
g~ossarii.Softcover, 141 pp.:$19.95
Two stunt kite books by Sewaas van der Horst and Nop Velthuizc
cover all aspects of the sport in up-to-date high-tech style.
Well organized and printed, the books contain excellent
drawings and photos, including some in color:
Stunt Kites to Make and Fly. The first book includes clear plans for
10 stunters, some with novel touches. Softcover, 96 pp., $21.95.
NEW! Stunt Kites 11:New Designs, Buggies and Boats. Plans for 8
kites plus advice on how to design your own. Emphasizes
"power" kites, has plans for a buggy. Softcover, 96 pp., $22.95.
NEW! Companion diskette for IBM-compatibles,prints out templates of S.K.11 plans; also simulates stunt maneuvers, $14.95
New edition!Kites for Kiwis by
Colin McGeorge. Totally
updated, contains 14 kite
plans plus the manu taratahi,
a native Maori design made
from local vegetation.
Fresh book design with color
photographs. A good introduction to kites. Softcover,
62 pp., $14.95
Drackenreise (Kite Journey)by Ruedi EppleGass, in German. Interesting black-andwhite book. Countries explored (some visited and others researched) include Turkey,
Vietnam, Dominican Republic, and spots in
the South Pacific, Latin America and
Europe. Political overtones. A few drawings
of biodegradable kites flown in these countries, plus poems and flying tips.
The Kite Lines Bookstore . . . Continued
4
Plans for more than 100
kites plus solid, wellresearched and -written
aerodynamics and history.
Color in half the book.
Index and bibliography.
Alt 7hatFlies by
Tal Streeter and
Pamela Houk. Anthology of unusual kites from 1990
Dayton (Ohio) Art
Institute exhibit,
featuring works by
three noted artists.
Optical illusions,
environmental works, interviews,
interesting bibliography. No plans.
drawings from respected
designers. Sewing, aerodynamics, accessories and
(un)related stories. Kite
paintings, a few photos.
Appendixes, index. Softcover, 287 pp., $16.95
The Art of the l a p a m e Kite
by Tal Streeter. Rare profiles of master kite artists of
Japan sensitively interviewed in 1971-72,iust
before the waning df their
traditional arts. Includes
130 photos (52 in color).
No alans, but some backg&nd on Japanese-style
kite building. A rich contemwrarv historv and a
true joy to read. ~oftcover,i81ip., $2995
Books by Jim Rowlands, though U.S.-published, contain British
quirks; have a few color photos within otherwise black-andwhite pages of line drawings; have a book list and index:
Soft Kites and Windsocks. Same as British Kites and Windsocks.
The best and most popular work from Rowlands so far. Plans
for 11 kites (including whale, frog, parafoil and Flow Form),
S windsocks, 5 drogues and 2 bags. Softcover, 104 pp., $14.95
The Big Book ofKites. Same as British Making and Flying Modem
Kites. Plans for 36 kites all on the simple side, plus materials,
techniques, an "evolution" of kites. Softcover, 127pp., $14.95
One-How Kites. Same as British Kites to Make andFly. Plans for
25 basic beginner's kites, including oversimplified Facet and
stunter kites. Somewhat overlaps with The Big Book ofKites. A
reference (not a guide) for workshops. Softcover, 95 pp., $14.95
II
now basic. Excellent sections on
flying the Revolution and Flexifoil.
Good Introduction to team flyiqg
and choreography. Self-published
with low-resolution photos, but lots
of them. Touches of humor.
Kite books by Wayne Hosking vary in
appearance but suffer in the writing:
New softcover edition! (new cover only)
Kites. Lavishly printed book of beautiful
kite photos. Some good research on
Asian kites. Kitemakers are unidentified.
Absurd appendixes; 120pp, $15.95
NEW1 Kites to Touch the Sky. A homemade book containing plans for 32
plastic kites. Simple drawings, no photographs. Softcover, 96 pp,, $9.95
Books by David Gornberg are "homemade," lack-
ing polish and photographs, but are useful to read:
New cover1 Stunt Kites1 The first book on the subject. Thorough coverage of the basics plus
advanced techniques. Maneuvers, tips, information and proven advice from 20 well-known sport
fliers; lots of safety pointers. No kite plans or
brand names. Softcover, 88 pp., $11.95
The Fighter Kite Book! A goodly amount of information, mostly correct, about fighter flying.
Though flat in tone, it's a useful starting source.
Contains plans for a basic fighter. Beware drawings of bridles. Softcover, 74 pp., $8.95
The Ultimate Kite Book by Paul
and Helene Morgan. If it
weren't for the exaggerated title,
this book would be easier to
recommend. Colorfullv done
with high quality illustration
and printing. Brief history;
incomplete identification of
kitemakers. Extensive
photographs showing flying
techniques. About six good kite
plans, including a simple
stunter and a tumbling star.
Hardcover, 88 pp., $19.95 L
Toshio Ito and
efforts to be scientific about kites.
Uneven translation from the
Japanese. Softcover,
'
RM
F
' I
Fighter Kites by
Philippe Gallot. Plans
for 29 kites, tips on
flying, tools, materials,
games and accessories.
Clear illustrations, adequate instructions,
plentiful enthusiasm.
Watch out for metric
conversions. Softcover,
96 pp., $12.95
*
k
4
NEW! Scott Hampton's
Long Beach poster
posters are hugely
popular in the kite
community-and
this is his best one
yet! It shows 62 of
reat way to identify yourself with the kite
community. Super gift for a kite friend. The
handsome Mte Lines 1%" cloisonne pin in a limited edition, your choice of three colors-blue/blue, greenblack or redblack.
$6.00each
or two for $11.00
Plus shipping $1.00 per order
ative kites as
observed in 1992
Washington.
Printed on heavy, high-quality paper 22" x 16"in size, "Long Beach"
comes with a map so you can identify every Mtemaker. Exclusively by
mail from Kite Lines in the U.S. Great to display, super as a special gift.
$20.00 plus $5.00 shipping in a strong tube
.
now you can have it a l l
- o n MICROFILM!
mLm'Es
each $3.00postpaid
back issues of
, available in a
neat, compact library on microfiche.
When copies sell out, a microfiche
version is offered immediately, so new
enthusiasts can take a crash course in
kiting with this treasure chest of useful
information!
KITE TALES
each $2.50 postpaid
entire set $85
postpaid
The complete set of
Kite Tales (the original
AKA newsletter) on
microfiche-over 1,600 pages-all 40
issues from October 1964 to November
1976. Twelve years of plans, news and
historic material-a must for researchers
or libraries.
ack issues of Kite Lines offer a wealth of information
and ideas: plans, tips, techniques (for both singleand multiline fliers), personalities, world records, festivals, reviews--an essential history of today's kiting, saturated with inspiring stories and designs.
No wonder back issues of Kite Lines are avidly collected by so many enthusiasts. You can start now with the
14 issues available in original paper form. $9.50 each
plus $1.00 each shipping, while supplies last.
.
..
SPRING-SUMMER 1992 (vol. 9, No. 2)
Andre Cassagnes; Thailand and the Natural Fibers Festival; Christmas island feats; Stunter Survey; George Peters.
FALL 1992 ( ~ ~ 1 .N9 ~, 3)
,
Castiglione, Le Touquet, Barcelona, Ostia; Arch Ribbon;
Nigara Falls; Tangles; Ianuzzi's Featherlight; Kim Petersen.
WINTER 1992-93 (Vol. 9, No. 4)
Hamamatsu; Kite Power, with traction chronology; fighters survey; Dieppe; GX-3 plans; Ron & Sandra Gibian.
SPRING 1993 (Vol. 10, No. 1)
Guatemala; Java; Fighters by Ed Alden; Celebs Paint
WINTER 1989-90 (Vol. 7, No. 4)
china by T~~streeter
and skyeM
~H~~ to~D~~ ~ Rokkakus
~ for AIDS;
~ International
~
~ Travel;Tips; aerials of
~
i~ ~ ~d ai parachute;
f~ ~ i ~stunting
~ ~ ~a
~perm. ; Ireland; quad-line Propeller;J w e n M d e r Hansen.
SUMMER-FALL 1993 (Vol. 10, No. 2)
SUMMER 1990 (Vol. 8, No. 1)
N~~ zealand, ~ ~ washington
~ l i ~ (, ~ ~ ~ parachute
l ~ ~ d ) ;Adrenaline tour of India; IstvAn Bodbczky's artistry; Carl
Stunter plans; Peter
Future Tech; Bobby Stanfield, Crowell's Cross Deck; Oldest U.S. Kite Festival (Iowa);
Kites at the Pyramids; Tony Wolfenden.
WlNTER 1990-91(Vol. 8, No. 2)
1993
3,
Dieppe, Montpellier, Bristol and Berlin; Stunt Kite SurNorth Sea events (Terschelling, Scheveningen,Fanca);
vey; D'Alto's Whitehead kite; Largest Eddy record.
Kite Camp Caravan; Rendez-Vous Mondial in Canada;
Sheragy's Butterflies; Wolfgang Schimmelpfennig.
SPRING 1991 (Vol. 8, No. 3)
Whistling Kites of China by Tal Streeter; Gomberg on
1994 Oro1. lo*
No. 4,
Kite Pins; Angle Estimating; Wind Shot stunter plans.
Kite Sailing; South America: Colombia & Brazil; Buggy
SUMMER-FALL 1991 (Vol. 8, No. 4)
- events + Scoot Buggy & Wheels of Doom plans;
Pierre Fabre in Japan; Kinnaird on Rokkakus; Kocher's
Australia's Bondi Beach festival; Reza Ragheb.
Obtuse Tetra; Huntington Beach scandal; Peter Malinski.
FALL 1994 (Vol. 11, No. 1)
WINTER 1991-92 (Vol. 9, No. 1)
Shirone's New Museum; Korean Fighters; Art Sr Ideas of
Joan
Montcada; Thailand International;Aerial
Stunting in Italy & Poland; Gubbio (Italy);Painless
Photographer George Lawrence; Jimmy Sampson.
Parafoil plans; Painting Ripstop; Roberto Guidori.
wo1.
FOR THE RECORD
AWall of Dears
The Quesf
for
SharkZoneI
By Duncan McEvoy
ot only did we do it, we did it twice!!
On September 11, 1994 at the Festival
of the Winds, Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia
we dropped 289 parabears. Then a week
later, on September 18 at the Capital Kite
Festival in Canberra, we dropped 487
parabears!-* new record for most fauna
parchuted from a kite at one time.
The Canberra drop was by far the best.
The conditions were much more difficult.
The wind gusted to 27 knots with 50-degree
shifts. We used a 50-square-foot Sutton
Flow Form as the lifter-the wind was too
severe for anything else. The load in the
dropping rig was 10.5 kilograms (just over
23 pounds).
One of the nice things about this drop
was how it became a group effort. We had
people launching, flying at midpoint on
the line, helping get the dropping rig in the
air, flying at the stake and managing the
messenger.
The rig was designed by Peter Coleman
and was ethically sound if somewhat bizarre.
The dropping rig was a fabric cylinder
attached to plastic foam doors that were
operated by a delightfully over-engineered
series of levers that my two years of university physics could never explain.
A two-winged messenger was flown up
the line. In front of it was a large red arrow
with an inch of brass wire at the pointed
end. Just in front of the dropping rig was a
red balloon. The arrow burst the balloon.
Attached to the balloon was a weighted
static line which was released by the balloon's bursting. The weight then pulled the
first of the levers on the dropping rig and the
doors opened, allowing the bears to cascade out.
The technical side was insig-hcant compared to the sight of almost 500 bears all in
the air at the same time. It was a wall of
bears. I have started to think of it as a piece
of performance art. The feeling among the
fliers and all those brave bears probably
can't be repeated.
The team was Peter and Rhonda Coleman, and Duncan McEvoy and Ann Herbert.
Help on the day was given by members of
the Australian Kiteflyers Society.
To quote from England's John Barker of
the Bearly-Made-ItSkydive Squad:
Up with kites! Down with bears!
the top performin4 Sportliite leads you to the
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improve performance and your enjoyment of flying. Make sure
your next SportKite has the very best frame possible, SkySharkm
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(310) 4 14-0977
I
No uisit to the West Coast is complete without a stop at...
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@
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ever!"
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p.s. Don't forget the Monterey
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-
EMPTY SPACES IN THE SKY
Low Chin Nghee
hey say he left us the day the Weifang,
China festival began, in April 1994. No
one gave me the exact date-that is the
way we remember Low Chin Nghee's passing. No one is sure of his exact age. People
born in China many years ago rarely know
their birth dates. None of these things matter. He left his mark on time.
By popular standards, Low Chin Nghee
of Singaporehad no education. Therefore he
knew a lot about things that mattered. He
was a philosopher, a sailor, a weatherman, a
butcher, a father of 10 and a kitemaker. He
knew and understood many things, the lore
of nature, the mechanisms of the human
body. He had a response to and a special
interpretation of events and circumstances. He was a pronouncer rather
than a conversationalist. You needed to
be close to him to understand, especially if you were young, noisy and brash.
Some said Low was exasperating,even
cantankerous. In truth he was simply fastidious and sensible. At festivals he performed only when conditions were right;
why indeed smggle against nature when the
tenets of fmg shui teach us to accommodate them?
I learned to listen to him. At meetings I
was interested to know what he thought.
And what did he say? The obvious, frequently the very thing we had overlooked.
He was a simple man, a glass of warm water
and a good friend were his simple joys.
Ask him about weather conditions and
you'd get a ten-minute discourse on the
opposing armies above your head about to
do battle, how one would vanquish the
other, leading to the domination of peaceful conditions. When I looked up, as I often
did when he pointed heavenwards, I swear
I saw warriors on horseback amidst dark
clouds.
I met him in his life's last chapter, around
1980. He was sitting under a fig tree with a
three-meter butterfly kite, the most complicated kite I had ever seen.
From what I can judge, he spent all his
waking hours making kites. First he made
butterflies, then centipedes and dragons.
His materials of choice were bamboo and silk
or rayon until 1985 when Steve Lamb introduced him to fiberglass and ripstop at
Lincoln City, Oregon.
T
seconds, an event witnessed by a lawyer
and Dr. Desmond Onn, head of Information
and Research, Singapore Sports Council,
who measured the kite and timed its flight,
solemnly stating such in a statutory declaration. I was to submit this to The Guinness
Book ofRecords, which I never did, but now,
at this time, I declare it to the world.
Low Chin Nghee's dragons and centipedes usually ran from 110to 130 cells, but
by joining two sections together he often
flew 220 or more. His longest ran to 325
cells, tall as a 70-story building. In the early
days, each cell consisted of two pieces of
bamboo, one for the disk and one for the
balancer, but as the cells grew in area, he
built them to break down.
Each cell now consisted of four pieces of
bamboo, each perfectly cut, trimmed and
balanced. To make 100 cells, he needed to
craft the bamboo, hand-stitch the fabric,
create the head (a work of art in itself) and
then string the kite together with an accuracy of a few millimeters over its entire
length.
His greatest achievement was the invention of the fourth, "magic" line, a thin,
loose line that extended from the head
about two-thirds along the length of the
body. Low used this line, completely independent of the three flying lines, when
the kite was ready for descent.
By holding this line and slowly
releasing the flying line, the cells would
cend, thereby decreasing the kite's length
and offering less surface to the wind. The
visual effect was astonishing as the kite
Low Chin Nghee in Singapore and on the
and a
effect began as
cover of Kite Lines (Spring 1986), gripping
the kite
cells traveled up and down,
his dragon with gloved hands. The kite cornsank
to
the
ground,
almost
compressed
and
prised 145 units and flew about 330 feet hlgh.
packed ready to take home. This retrieval
Association member burned as we screamed, method was much easier than pulling the
"See, curry chicken on TV!" How funny it kite in disk by disk and straining each of
them in the process. To our knowledge, the
was and how cruel we were.
He was the only member of the Singa- "magic line" was never used in China. It was
pore Kite Association to appear on the cover a Low Chin Nghee original.
If you were to become hopelessly lost in
of Kite Lines (Spring 1986).When he saw the
picture, he just chuckled and handed the an underground cavern, Low Chin Nghee
would have been the man to get you out. He
copy to someone else.
Dragon kites were his forte. On 17 may have driven you mad with his philosoJanuary 1988, he flew one at Marina South, phies, but he would have gotten you out,
Singapore that was 735 feet (about 224 probably with a piece of thread and a sliver
-Shakib Gunn
meters) long. On its maiden flight in poor of bamboo.
Singapore
wind, it stayed aloft for 4 minutes and 10
Low's butterflies and birds were complex
in construction, requiring much time to
assemble.
One was an eagle that looked so cumbersome we renamed it a chicken, soon to
become "curry chicken" because of its brown
color. Somehow this kite found its way into
the Singapore television studios. Low had
been given a fairly short time slot in an
audience participation program. He struggled
with tying knots and bows, unconcerned
with time, ignoring the audience and MCto this day, I wonder if he realized he was live
on television. The telephone lines
of every Singapore
\
WINTER-SPRING 1995 1 KITE LINES I 67
PLAY WITH THE WIND
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Cruise at over 60 mph
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Measure & forecast wind conditions
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Sale Now 9658.00
Dealer Inquiries Welcome
IN THE WlND
News, Rumors & Miscellany
r"
LARGrnJmGMENT EVER
rendered by a court in a kite
claim?Possibly so-that's the award
maCe to Peter Lynn Internationalin
February for copyright infringement on the part of Sieger's Vliegers
in The Netherlands.
The Dutch court agreed to all
13 points claimed and allowed
damages from the time of the
claim many months earlier of
approximately US $150,000. By
now that sum will be much greater
because more time has passed during which the infringer has continued to distribute copycat kites.
Sieger's was further ordered to
retrieve all infringing kites, destroy
its inventory of them, give the
claimant access to customer lists.. .
and on and on. (Yet Sieger has
been claiming he won!)
ET READY FOR A NEW CBS
,TV show called "Beyond Be' One of its first segments, slat-
ed for the middle of April, features
"power" kiting. The producers
asked Kite Lines for information,
which we (grudgingly) supplied.
They are looking for "risk-taking,
'wow' stuff." Well, wow to you, too.
URDER BY KITE STRING?
Yep you'll find it in one of
those 20-bit Avon paperbacks, Dune
to Death, by Mary Daheim. "Kite
string! Now that's real ugly!" says
Sheriff Eldritch on page 40.
M
-
RE YOU A CONNOISSEUR OF
A the rare few movies that feature
kites? (Remember that old blackand-white short The Kite, based on
the Somerset Maugham story?)
If so, you'll applaud The Blue
Kite, an award-winning film from
China. A seemingly simple story,
it eloquently conveys the effects of
the Cultural Revolution on the family. Even today it is remarkable that
a film of this honesty could have
made it past the authorities: it has
not been shown in China. (In the
U.S., you will have to scout the
art theaters for it.)
And what part is played by
the kite? l l e central character,
a little boy named Tietou,
receives a kite his father made
for him before going away to
a labor camp. The kite is part of
the story and at the tragic end it
symbolizes a last vestige of hope
for freedom.
In most stories, the kite is used
predously as a
Of some
itual attribute rather than as a real
of use and enjoyment in life.
In this tale from the home of kites,
the symbol and the reality come
together in a satisfying,heartrending whole.
1
Above, a
favorite kite New Year's card Is
from Herman & An van den
Broek, The Netherlands. Echoes
Mahalia Jackson:
got
the whole world in his hands:'
Below, imagination sings in
Ferrara, Italy, where Vulandra
Aqullonisti club flies kites representing musical instruments.
-
HREE YEARS OF PLANNING...
The pieces de rksistance we1
he began, George Peters finally three Chinese mechanical kites
pulled it o E curating a superb from my collection: a crane, a
international kite exhibit at the bat and a peach boy. Visitors
Arvada Center for the Arts & Hu- with good lungs and no inhibitions could be found blowing
manities in Arvada, Colorado.
the three
From August to November
kitesf
1994, the exhibit showcased a
world-class collection of kites,
w i n d
from traditional to contempof a n s
throughrary. We had Japanese bees, Fabre
out the
needles, Murasako hatas, a Brockexhibit's
ett angel, Tony Wolfenden's genformal
kis and too much more to list!
opening.
A kite
Right, rokkakus by Robert
festival
Kackebart of Germany.
was held
Below, a few of the many
miniature kites on display,
in conthese from China.
junction
with the
exhibit
on the field surrounding I
the Arvada c e n t q
I Complex. George commented that here was
chance for the public
see some of the kites in
their natural habitatthe sky.
-Scott Skinn
...and three gallery directorsafter
I
I
I
F
LYING UNDERGROUND?YES,
Jim Cosca and Dave and Sherri
Arnold went spelunking in Franklin, West Virginia in January. Took
their kites (of course, what did you
expect?)-ultralights, for indoor flying. In a large "room," seeing by
flashlights and with bats for an
audience, they gave their kites a
little airtime deep down.
It wasn't the first time kites were
flown underground. In 1986, Roberto Guidori flew a kite in La
Grotta Grande del Vento, Europe's
biggest cave hall, in Frasassi Cave,
Italy. He flew a 30cm (12")sled on
a 10m (33')line for a few minutes,
1
d
Dave Arnold In wild,
windless West Virginia.
got no witness signatures, took no
photos-but his word is good.
ILL BIGGE, BIG THINKER OF
3little
kites from Germantown,
Maryland, recently flew (indoors)
his latest Mylar Eddy kite, just 1%"
tall. Spars were monofilament line
straightened over a light bulb. Having seen what heat can do, he says
"I plan to cook some more in the
oven and wrap it on a can to give the
mono a nice curve for dihedral."
: YOU READ THE KITE CLUB
iewsletters (we read 'em all),
you'll find a lot of twaddle, occasional rrreatness and the rare
outrighvt shock. Take this little
item from the "Lavender
Winds Kite Club News" in
California:
"The San Gregorio
Clothing Optional Fun
Fly.. .had good winds.. .(and)I
finally made Elizabeth happy
by flying a stunt kite from my
nipple rings-for a short
time!"
9
WINTER-SPRING 1995 1 KITE LINES / 6 C
Kitemaker: Scott Skinner,
Monument, Colorado, USA
Occupation: Private Investor;
President of The Drachen
Foundation.
Kite experience:Active kiteflier
since 1975 and kitemaker since
1%5. Inspired by Tal Streeter's Att
of the lapanese Kite.
Honors: "Several AKA and other
festival awards, but the greatest
compliment came from Peter
Malinski, who wanted to own one
of my kites."
Favorite flying spots: Farm, Denmark and Long Beach, Washington
Intent in kitemakina: "Ex~lore~atchworkas a motif for kites and marry this
American craft with the traditional kite shapes and motifs of Japan."
Photographers: Scott Skinner, Joe ~ a n f r e d i nO;ri John M. Roberts
i
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B
SKYGALLERY
features outstanding kites by one maker in each issue. You are
invited to submit photographs of your finest kites. Write for details: Kite Lines,
P.O.Box 466, Randallstown, MD 21133-0466, USA. Fax: 410-922-4262
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as5 Weldon Roac
;ants Barbara
963-2968
-
Classif ieds
Classifieds are limited to non-commercial and
personal advertisers. Rates are $1 .OO per word,
$10 minimum, payable in advance. Publisher may
edit or abbreviate for space. Send copy with payment to: Kite Lines, P.O. Box 466, Randallstown,
MD 21 133-0466, USA.
FOR SALE
HUGE IN~~NTORY
OF THE W O R L ~ ~ S
FINEST STUNT KITES, SINGLE-LINE
KITES AND ACCESSORIES. WIDE
COLOR SELECTIONS. FAST,FRlENDLY
AND PERSONALIZED SERVICE.
f FREE CATALOG I
Factory Direct Prices!!!
Call or Write for
Our Free Catalog.
8100 CEDAR CREEK DR.
NEW PORT RICHEY, FL 34653
KITE PATENTS: Every kite-related patent issued
in the U.S. is available in capsule form to those
sending $50 to Ed Grauel, 799 Elmwood Terrace,
Rochester, NY 14620. Included are patent numbers, filing and issuance dates, inventors' names
and a brief description for each of the 836 patents.
QUAD-LINING MANUAL: Quad Lining the Delta
Stunt Kite, written & illustrated by Roger Maddy.
Easy to follow instructions. Flying and winding
tips. $4.95 + $1 .OO shipping. Write Roger Maddy,
1332 5th Ave. SW, Olympia, WA 98502-5307.
ONE OF THE FIRST: Historic kite shop, The
Unique Place - World of Kites, in trendy Royal
Oak, MI. Mobile kiosk also for sale. Famous owner
ready to retire. Call Pat Gilgallon, 810-356-1427.
GIBSON GIRL BOX KITE: In metal container, in
excellent condition. Photos available. Best offer.
Tom Charlsworth, 162 Old Farm Road, Hamilton,
New Zealand, Phone 856-7746.
BACK ISSUES of Kite Lines in good original condition. Two lots: Lot 1: Complete sequence from
Spring 1977 (Vol. 1 No. 1) through Spring 1986
(21 issues). Lot2:Complete sequence from Spring
1977 through Winter-Spring 1981 (12 issues). Make
best offer in writing by June 15th, 1995 to Anneke
Davis, 2226 Crest Rd., Baltimore, MD 21209.
WANTED
OUT-OF-PRINT Japanese kite books, such as Bird
Kites by Goto; Vented Cellular Kites and Kite Trains
Making by Ohashi; Ship Kites by Yajima; Magic
Kites by Kuroda; Airplane Kites by Hasebe-and
any books whatsoever by Nishibayashi. Any condition OK. Write or call Pete Rondeau, 3880 York
Rd., New Oxford, PA 17350-9609; 717-624-9434.
reels, and
accessories
8 Oriental
O Sportsman's
N.B.K. & Hawk 2
Special Sale Price
+$Custom
+:+
Fine Art
Not all colors available
Call us toll free
1-800-29-KITES
Fly-Away Kites, Inc.
(Kite Supermarket on the Jersey Shore)
1108 Main St., Belmar NJ 07719
Fax: 1-908-681-0523

Kite Lines

Transcription

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